Rest-based declarative policy management

ABSTRACT

One embodiment performs policy evaluation in a multi-tenant cloud-based identity and access management (“IAM”) system. The embodiment receives a request for an IAM service for a tenant of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system, and determines an applicable policy associated with the IAM service. The embodiment determines a policy expression of the applicable policy, where the policy expression includes a reference to an attribute value, and where the reference either includes a function or includes an application programming interface (“API”) of an attribute retriever class. The embodiment obtains the attribute value by invoking the function or by invoking the API of the attribute retriever class. The embodiment evaluates the applicable policy at run-time using at least the obtained attribute value, and performs the IAM service based on the result of the evaluating of the policy.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of priority to U.S. ProvisionalApplication 62/564,373, filed Sep. 28, 2017, and U.S. ProvisionalApplication 62/564,375, filed Sep. 28, 2017, both being incorporatedherein by reference in their entirety.

FIELD

One embodiment is directed generally to identity and access management,and in particular, to identity and access management in a cloud system.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Generally, the use of cloud-based applications (e.g., enterprise publiccloud applications, third-party cloud applications, etc.) is soaring,with access coming from a variety of devices (e.g., desktop and mobiledevices) and a variety of users (e.g., employees, partners, customers,etc.). The abundant diversity and accessibility of cloud-basedapplications has led identity management and access security to become acentral concern. Typical security concerns in a cloud environment areunauthorized access, account hijacking, malicious insiders, etc.Accordingly, there is a need for secure access to cloud-basedapplications, or applications located anywhere, regardless of from whatdevice type or by what user type the applications are accessed.

SUMMARY

One embodiment is a system for policy evaluation in a multi-tenantcloud-based identity and access management (“IAM”) system. The systemreceives a request for an IAM service for a tenant of the multi-tenantcloud-based IAM system, and determines an applicable policy associatedwith the IAM service. The system determines a policy expression of theapplicable policy, where the policy expression includes a reference toan attribute value, and where the reference either includes a functionor includes an application programming interface (“API”) of an attributeretriever class. The system obtains the attribute value by invoking thefunction or by invoking the API of the attribute retriever class. Thesystem evaluates the applicable policy at run-time using at least theobtained attribute value, and performs the IAM service based on theresult of the evaluating of the policy.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIGS. 1-5 are block diagrams of example embodiments that providecloud-based identity management.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram providing a system view of an embodiment.

FIG. 6A is a block diagram providing a functional view of an embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an embodiment that implements Cloud Gate.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example system that implements multiple tenanciesin one embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a network view of an embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of a system architecture view of single signon (“SSO”) functionality in one embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a message sequence flow of SSO functionality in oneembodiment.

FIG. 12 illustrates an example of a distributed data grid in oneembodiment.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of an example data model used for declarativepolicy management according to an embodiment.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example run-time flow diagram of policyevaluation by a declarative policy engine according to an embodiment.

FIG. 15 illustrates a block diagram of relationships between a policyengine, an abstract policy engine, a default policy engine, and a trustpolicy engine, according to an embodiment.

FIGS. 16A and 16B are flow diagrams of methods for declarative policymanagement in a multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system, in accordance withembodiments.

FIG. 17 illustrates an example administration console user interface(“UI”) for declarative policy management in a multi-tenant cloud-basedIAM system, in accordance with embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments provide a policy engine that allows for configuringdeclarative policies. In one embodiment, a consumer of the policy enginecan uptake the policy engine by defining a policy type that allows theconsumer to define/configure policies and execute business rules withoutwriting code. In one embodiment, the policy engine has its ownlanguage/grammar and supports policy expressions. The policy engine alsosupports management of functions. In one embodiment, instead ofrequiring policies to be hard coded out of the box, the policy engineallows a tenant administrator to define their policies based on businessneeds. Accordingly, the tenant administrator may avoid coding, andpolicy/rule configuration may instead be used to achieve the samefunctionality with flexibility to change the configuration asneeded/desired. Embodiments give flexibility to each tenantadministrator to do so without making any customization to the product.

Embodiments provide an identity cloud service that implements amicroservices based architecture and provides multi-tenant identity anddata security management and secure access to cloud-based applications.Embodiments support secure access for hybrid cloud deployments (i.e.,cloud deployments which include a combination of a public cloud and aprivate cloud). Embodiments protect applications and data both in thecloud and on-premise. Embodiments support multi-channel access via web,mobile, and application programming interfaces (“APIs”). Embodimentsmanage access for different users, such as customers, partners, andemployees. Embodiments manage, control, and audit access across thecloud as well as on-premise. Embodiments integrate with new and existingapplications and identities. Embodiments are horizontally scalable.

One embodiment is a system that implements a number of microservices ina stateless middle tier environment to provide cloud-based multi-tenantidentity and access management services. In one embodiment, eachrequested identity management service is broken into real-time andnear-real-time tasks. The real-time tasks are handled by a microservicein the middle tier, while the near-real-time tasks are offloaded to amessage queue. Embodiments implement access tokens that are consumed bya routing tier and a middle tier to enforce a security model foraccessing the microservices. Accordingly, embodiments provide acloud-scale Identity and Access Management (“IAM”) platform based on amulti-tenant, microservices architecture.

One embodiment provides an identity cloud service that enablesorganizations to rapidly develop fast, reliable, and secure services fortheir new business initiatives. In one embodiment, the identity cloudservice provides a number of core services, each of which solving aunique challenge faced by many enterprises. In one embodiment, theidentity cloud service supports administrators in, for example, initialon-boarding/importing of users, importing groups with user members,creating/updating/disabling/enabling/deleting users,assigning/un-assigning users into/from groups,creating/updating/deleting groups, resetting passwords, managingpolicies, sending activation, etc. The identity cloud service alsosupports end users in, for example, modifying profiles, settingprimary/recovery emails, verifying emails, unlocking their accounts,changing passwords, recovering passwords in case of forgotten password,etc.

Unified Security of Access

One embodiment protects applications and data in a cloud environment aswell as in an on-premise environment. The embodiment secures access toany application from any device by anyone. The embodiment providesprotection across both environments since inconsistencies in securitybetween the two environments may result in higher risks. For example,such inconsistencies may cause a sales person to continue having accessto their Customer Relationship Management (“CRM”) account even afterthey have defected to the competition. Accordingly, embodiments extendthe security controls provisioned in the on-premise environment into thecloud environment. For example, if a person leaves a company,embodiments ensure that their accounts are disabled both on-premise andin the cloud.

Generally, users may access applications and/or data through manydifferent channels such as web browsers, desktops, mobile phones,tablets, smart watches, other wearables, etc. Accordingly, oneembodiment provides secured access across all these channels. Forexample, a user may use their mobile phone to complete a transactionthey started on their desktop.

One embodiment further manages access for various users such ascustomers, partners, employees, etc. Generally, applications and/or datamay be accessed not just by employees but by customers or third parties.Although many known systems take security measures when onboardingemployees, they generally do not take the same level of securitymeasures when giving access to customers, third parties, partners, etc.,resulting in the possibility of security breaches by parties that arenot properly managed. However, embodiments ensure that sufficientsecurity measures are provided for access of each type of user and notjust employees.

Identity Cloud Service

Embodiments provide an Identity Cloud Service (“IDCS”) that is amulti-tenant, cloud-scale, IAM platform. IDCS provides authentication,authorization, auditing, and federation. IDCS manages access to customapplications and services running on the public cloud, and on-premisesystems. In an alternative or additional embodiment, IDCS may alsomanage access to public cloud services. For example, IDCS can be used toprovide Single Sign On (“SSO”) functionality across such variety ofservices/applications/systems.

Embodiments are based on a multi-tenant, microservices architecture fordesigning, building, and delivering cloud-scale software services.Multi-tenancy refers to having one physical implementation of a servicesecurely supporting multiple customers buying that service. A service isa software functionality or a set of software functionalities (such asthe retrieval of specified information or the execution of a set ofoperations) that can be reused by different clients for differentpurposes, together with the policies that control its usage (e.g., basedon the identity of the client requesting the service). In oneembodiment, a service is a mechanism to enable access to one or morecapabilities, where the access is provided using a prescribed interfaceand is exercised consistent with constraints and policies as specifiedby the service description.

In one embodiment, a microservice is an independently deployableservice. In one embodiment, the term microservice contemplates asoftware architecture design pattern in which complex applications arecomposed of small, independent processes communicating with each otherusing language-agnostic APIs. In one embodiment, microservices aresmall, highly decoupled services and each may focus on doing a smalltask. In one embodiment, the microservice architectural style is anapproach to developing a single application as a suite of smallservices, each running in its own process and communicating withlightweight mechanisms (e.g., an HTTP resource API). In one embodiment,microservices are easier to replace relative to a monolithic servicethat performs all or many of the same functions. Moreover, each of themicroservices may be updated without adversely affecting the othermicroservices. In contrast, updates to one portion of a monolithicservice may undesirably or unintentionally negatively affect the otherportions of the monolithic service. In one embodiment, microservices maybe beneficially organized around their capabilities. In one embodiment,the startup time for each of a collection of microservices is much lessthan the startup time for a single application that collectivelyperforms all the services of those microservices. In some embodiments,the startup time for each of such microservices is about one second orless, while the startup time of such single application may be about aminute, several minutes, or longer.

In one embodiment, microservices architecture refers to a specialization(i.e., separation of tasks within a system) and implementation approachfor service oriented architectures (“SOAs”) to build flexible,independently deployable software systems. Services in a microservicesarchitecture are processes that communicate with each other over anetwork in order to fulfill a goal. In one embodiment, these servicesuse technology-agnostic protocols. In one embodiment, the services havea small granularity and use lightweight protocols. In one embodiment,the services are independently deployable. By distributingfunctionalities of a system into different small services, the cohesionof the system is enhanced and the coupling of the system is decreased.This makes it easier to change the system and add functions andqualities to the system at any time. It also allows the architecture ofan individual service to emerge through continuous refactoring, andhence reduces the need for a big up-front design and allows forreleasing software early and continuously.

In one embodiment, in the microservices architecture, an application isdeveloped as a collection of services, and each service runs arespective process and uses a lightweight protocol to communicate (e.g.,a unique API for each microservice). In the microservices architecture,decomposition of a software into individual services/capabilities can beperformed at different levels of granularity depending on the service tobe provided. A service is a runtime component/process. Each microserviceis a self-contained module that can talk to other modules/microservices.Each microservice has an unnamed universal port that can be contacted byothers. In one embodiment, the unnamed universal port of a microserviceis a standard communication channel that the microservice exposes byconvention (e.g., as a conventional Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”)port) and that allows any other module/microservice within the sameservice to talk to it. A microservice or any other self-containedfunctional module can be generically referred to as a “service”.

Embodiments provide multi-tenant identity management services.Embodiments are based on open standards to ensure ease of integrationwith various applications, delivering IAM capabilities throughstandards-based services.

Embodiments manage the lifecycle of user identities which entails thedetermination and enforcement of what an identity can access, who can begiven such access, who can manage such access, etc. Embodiments run theidentity management workload in the cloud and support securityfunctionality for applications that are not necessarily in the cloud.The identity management services provided by the embodiments may bepurchased from the cloud. For example, an enterprise may purchase suchservices from the cloud to manage their employees' access to theirapplications.

Embodiments provide system security, massive scalability, end userusability, and application interoperability. Embodiments address thegrowth of the cloud and the use of identity services by customers. Themicroservices based foundation addresses horizontal scalabilityrequirements, while careful orchestration of the services addresses thefunctional requirements. Achieving both goals requires decomposition(wherever possible) of the business logic to achieve statelessness witheventual consistency, while much of the operational logic not subject toreal-time processing is shifted to near-real-time by offloading to ahighly scalable asynchronous event management system with guaranteeddelivery and processing. Embodiments are fully multi-tenant from the webtier to the data tier in order to realize cost efficiencies and ease ofsystem administration.

Embodiments are based on industry standards (e.g., OpenID Connect,OAuth2, Security Assertion Markup Language 2 (“SAML2”), System forCross-domain Identity Management (“SCIM”), Representational StateTransfer (“REST”), etc.) for ease of integration with variousapplications. One embodiment provides a cloud-scale API platform andimplements horizontally scalable microservices for elastic scalability.The embodiment leverages cloud principles and provides a multi-tenantarchitecture with per-tenant data separation. The embodiment furtherprovides per-tenant customization via tenant self-service. Theembodiment is available via APIs for on-demand integration with otheridentity services, and provides continuous feature release.

One embodiment provides interoperability and leverages investments inidentity management (“IDM”) functionality in the cloud and on-premise.The embodiment provides automated identity synchronization fromon-premise Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (“LDAP”) data to clouddata and vice versa. The embodiment provides a SCIM identity bus betweenthe cloud and the enterprise, and allows for different options forhybrid cloud deployments (e.g., identity federation and/orsynchronization, SSO agents, user provisioning connectors, etc.).

Accordingly, one embodiment is a system that implements a number ofmicroservices in a stateless middle tier to provide cloud-basedmulti-tenant identity and access management services. In one embodiment,each requested identity management service is broken into real-time andnear-real-time tasks. The real-time tasks are handled by a microservicein the middle tier, while the near-real-time tasks are offloaded to amessage queue. Embodiments implement tokens that are consumed by arouting tier to enforce a security model for accessing themicroservices. Accordingly, embodiments provide a cloud-scale IAMplatform based on a multi-tenant, microservices architecture.

Generally, known systems provide siloed access to applications providedby different environments, e.g., enterprise cloud applications, partnercloud applications, third-party cloud applications, and customerapplications. Such siloed access may require multiple passwords,different password policies, different account provisioning andde-provisioning schemes, disparate audit, etc. However, one embodimentimplements IDCS to provide unified IAM functionality over suchapplications. FIG. 1 is a block diagram 100 of an example embodimentwith IDCS 118, providing a unified identity platform 126 for onboardingusers and applications. The embodiment provides seamless user experienceacross various applications such as enterprise cloud applications 102,partner cloud applications 104, third-party cloud applications 110, andcustomer applications 112. Applications 102, 104, 110, 112 may beaccessed through different channels, for example, by a mobile phone user108 via a mobile phone 106, by a desktop computer user 116 via a browser114, etc. A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is asoftware application for retrieving, presenting, and traversinginformation resources on the World Wide Web. Examples of web browsersare Mozilla Firefox®, Google Chrome®, Microsoft Internet Explorer®, andApple Safari®.

IDCS 118 provides a unified view 124 of a user's applications, a unifiedsecure credential across devices and applications (via identity platform126), and a unified way of administration (via an admin console 122).IDCS services may be obtained by calling IDCS APIs 142. Such servicesmay include, for example, login/SSO services 128 (e.g., OpenID Connect),federation services 130 (e.g., SAML), token services 132 (e.g., OAuth),directory services 134 (e.g., SCIM), provisioning services 136 (e.g.,SCIM or Any Transport over Multiprotocol (“AToM”)), event services 138(e.g., REST), and authorization services 140 (e.g., SCIM). IDCS 118 mayfurther provide reports and dashboards 120 related to the offeredservices.

Integration Tools

Generally, it is common for large corporations to have an IAM system inplace to secure access to their on-premise applications. Businesspractices are usually matured and standardized around an in-house IAMsystem such as “Oracle IAM Suite” from Oracle Corp. Even small to mediumorganizations usually have their business processes designed aroundmanaging user access through a simple directory solution such asMicrosoft Active Directory (“AD”). To enable on-premise integration,embodiments provide tools that allow customers to integrate theirapplications with IDCS.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram 200 of an example embodiment with IDCS 202 ina cloud environment 208, providing integration with an AD 204 that ison-premise 206. The embodiment provides seamless user experience acrossall applications including on-premise and third-party applications, forexample, on-premise applications 218 and various applications/servicesin cloud 208 such as cloud services 210, cloud applications 212, partnerapplications 214, and customer applications 216. Cloud applications 212may include, for example, Human Capital Management (“HCM”), CRM, talentacquisition (e.g., Oracle Taleo cloud service from Oracle Corp.),Configure Price and Quote (“CPQ”), etc. Cloud services 210 may include,for example, Platform as a Service (“PaaS”), Java, database, businessintelligence (“BI”), documents, etc.

Applications 210, 212, 214, 216, 218, may be accessed through differentchannels, for example, by a mobile phone user 220 via a mobile phone222, by a desktop computer user 224 via a browser 226, etc. Theembodiment provides automated identity synchronization from on-premiseAD data to cloud data via a SCIM identity bus 234 between cloud 208 andthe enterprise 206. The embodiment further provides a SAML bus 228 forfederating authentication from cloud 208 to on-premise AD 204 (e.g.,using passwords 232).

Generally, an identity bus is a service bus for identity relatedservices. A service bus provides a platform for communicating messagesfrom one system to another system. It is a controlled mechanism forexchanging information between trusted systems, for example, in aservice oriented architecture (“SOA”). An identity bus is a logical busbuilt according to standard HTTP based mechanisms such as web service,web server proxies, etc. The communication in an identity bus may beperformed according to a respective protocol (e.g., SCIM, SAML, OpenIDConnect, etc.). For example, a SAML bus is an HTTP based connectionbetween two systems for communicating messages for SAML services.Similarly, a SCIM bus is used to communicate SCIM messages according tothe SCIM protocol.

The embodiment of FIG. 2 implements an identity (“ID”) bridge 230 thatis a small binary (e.g., 1 MB in size) that can be downloaded andinstalled on-premise 206 alongside a customer's AD 204. ID Bridge 230listens to users and groups (e.g., groups of users) from theorganizational units (“OUs”) chosen by the customer and synchronizesthose users to cloud 208. In one embodiment, users' passwords 232 arenot synchronized to cloud 208. Customers can manage application accessfor users by mapping IDCS users' groups to cloud applications managed inIDCS 208. Whenever the users' group membership is changed on-premise206, their corresponding cloud application access changes automatically.

For example, an employee moving from engineering to sales can get nearinstantaneous access to the sales cloud and lose access to the developercloud. When this change is reflected in on-premise AD 204, cloudapplication access change is accomplished in near-real-time. Similarly,access to cloud applications managed in IDCS 208 is revoked for usersleaving the company. For full automation, customers may set up SSObetween on-premise AD 204 and IDCS 208 through, e.g., AD federationservice (“AD/FS”, or some other mechanism that implements SAMLfederation) so that end users can get access to cloud applications 210,212, 214, 216, and on-premise applications 218 with a single corporatepassword 332.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram 300 of an example embodiment that includes thesame components 202, 206, 208, 210, 212, 214, 216, 218, 220, 222, 224,226, 228, 234 as in FIG. 2. However, in the embodiment of FIG. 3, IDCS202 provides integration with an on-premise IDM 304 such as Oracle IDM.Oracle IDM 304 is a software suite from Oracle Corp. for providing IAMfunctionality. The embodiment provides seamless user experience acrossall applications including on-premise and third-party applications. Theembodiment provisions user identities from on-premise IDM 304 to IDCS208 via SCIM identity bus 234 between cloud 202 and enterprise 206. Theembodiment further provides SAML bus 228 (or an OpenID Connect bus) forfederating authentication from cloud 208 to on-premise 206.

In the embodiment of FIG. 3, an Oracle Identity Manager (“OIM”)Connector 302 from Oracle Corp., and an Oracle Access Manager (“OAM”)federation module 306 from Oracle Corp., are implemented as extensionmodules of Oracle IDM 304. A connector is a module that has physicalawareness about how to talk to a system. OIM is an applicationconfigured to manage user identities (e.g., manage user accounts indifferent systems based on what a user should and should not have accessto). OAM is a security application that provides access managementfunctionality such as web SSO; identity context, authentication andauthorization; policy administration; testing; logging; auditing; etc.OAM has built-in support for SAML. If a user has an account in IDCS 202,OIM connector 302 and OAM federation 306 can be used with Oracle IDM 304to create/delete that account and manage access from that account.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram 400 of an example embodiment that includes thesame components 202, 206, 208, 210, 212, 214, 216, 218, 220, 222, 224,226, 234 as in FIGS. 2 and 3. However, in the embodiment of FIG. 3, IDCS202 provides functionality to extend cloud identities to on-premiseapplications 218. The embodiment provides seamless view of the identityacross all applications including on-premise and third-partyapplications. In the embodiment of FIG. 4, SCIM identity bus 234 is usedto synchronize data in IDCS 202 with on-premise LDAP data called “CloudCache” 402. Cloud Cache 402 is disclosed in more detail below.

Generally, an application that is configured to communicate based onLDAP needs an LDAP connection. An LDAP connection may not be establishedby such application through a URL (unlike, e.g., “www.google.com” thatmakes a connection to Google) since the LDAP needs to be on a localnetwork. In the embodiment of FIG. 4, an LDAP-based application 218makes a connection to Cloud Cache 402, and Cloud Cache 402 establishes aconnection to IDCS 202 and then pulls data from IDCS 202 as it is beingrequested. The communication between IDCS 202 and Cloud Cache 402 may beimplemented according to the SCIM protocol. For example, Cloud Cache 402may use SCIM bus 234 to send a SCIM request to IDCS 202 and receivecorresponding data in return.

Generally, fully implementing an application includes building aconsumer portal, running marketing campaigns on the external userpopulation, supporting web and mobile channels, and dealing with userauthentication, sessions, user profiles, user groups, application roles,password policies, self-service/registration, social integration,identity federation, etc. Generally, application developers are notidentity/security experts. Therefore, on-demand identity managementservices are desired.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram 500 of an example embodiment that includes thesame components 202, 220, 222, 224, 226, 234, 402, as in FIGS. 2-4.However, in the embodiment of FIG. 5, IDCS 202 provides secure identitymanagement on demand. The embodiment provides on demand integration withidentity services of IDCS 202 (e.g., based on standards such as OpenIDConnect, OAuth2, SAML2, or SCIM). Applications 505 (which may beon-premise, in a public cloud, or in a private cloud) may call identityservice APIs 504 in IDCS 202. The services provided by IDCS 202 mayinclude, for example, self-service registration 506, password management508, user profile management 510, user authentication 512, tokenmanagement 514, social integration 516, etc.

In this embodiment, SCIM identity bus 234 is used to synchronize data inIDCS 202 with data in on-premise LDAP Cloud Cache 402. Further, a “CloudGate” 502 running on a web server/proxy (e.g., NGINX, Apache, etc.) maybe used by applications 505 to obtain user web SSO and REST API securityfrom IDCS 202. Cloud Gate 502 is a component that secures access tomulti-tenant IDCS microservices by ensuring that client applicationsprovide valid access tokens, and/or users successfully authenticate inorder to establish SSO sessions. Cloud Gate 502 is further disclosedbelow. Cloud Gate 502 (enforcement point similar to webgate/webagent)enables applications running behind supported web servers to participatein SSO.

One embodiment provides SSO and cloud SSO functionality. A general pointof entry for both on-premise IAM and IDCS in many organizations is SSO.Cloud SSO enables users to access multiple cloud resources with a singleuser sign-in. Often, organizations will want to federate theiron-premise identities. Accordingly, embodiments utilize open standardsto allow for integration with existing SSO to preserve and extendinvestment (e.g., until a complete, eventual transition to an identitycloud service approach is made).

One embodiment may provide the following functionalities:

maintain an identity store to track user accounts, ownership, access,and permissions that have been authorized,

integrate with workflow to facilitate various approvals (e.g.,management, IT, human resources, legal, and compliance) needed forapplications access,

provision SaaS user accounts for selective devices (e.g., mobile andpersonal computer (“PC”)) with access to user portal containing manyprivate and public cloud resources, and

facilitate periodic management attestation review for compliance withregulations and current job responsibilities.

In addition to these functions, embodiments may further provide:

cloud account provisioning to manage account life cycle in cloudapplications,

more robust multifactor authentication (“MFA”) integration,

extensive mobile security capabilities, and

dynamic authentication options.

One embodiment provides adaptive authentication and MFA. Generally,passwords and challenge questions have been seen as inadequate andsusceptible to common attacks such as phishing. Most business entitiestoday are looking at some form of MFA to reduce risk. To be successfullydeployed, however, solutions need to be easily provisioned, maintained,and understood by the end user, as end users usually resist anythingthat interferes with their digital experience. Companies are looking forways to securely incorporate bring your own device (“BYOD”), socialidentities, remote users, customers, and contractors, while making MFAan almost transparent component of a seamless user access experience.Within an MFA deployment, industry standards such as OAuth and OpenIDConnect are essential to ensure integration of existing multifactorsolutions and the incorporation of newer, adaptive authenticationtechnology. Accordingly, embodiments define dynamic (or adaptive)authentication as the evaluation of available information (i.e., IPaddress, location, time of day, and biometrics) to prove an identityafter a user session has been initiated. With the appropriate standards(e.g., open authentication (“OATH”) and fast identity online (“FIDO”))integration and extensible identity management framework, embodimentsprovide MFA solutions that can be adopted, upgraded, and integratedeasily within an IT organization as part of an end-to-end secure IAMdeployment. When considering MFA and adaptive policies, organizationsmust implement consistent policies across on-premise and cloudresources, which in a hybrid IDCS and on-premise IAM environmentrequires integration between systems.

One embodiment provides user provisioning and certification. Generally,the fundamental function of an IAM solution is to enable and support theentire user provisioning life cycle. This includes providing users withthe application access appropriate for their identity and role withinthe organization, certifying that they have the correct ongoing accesspermissions (e.g., as their role or the tasks or applications usedwithin their role change over time), and promptly de-provisioning themas their departure from the organization may require. This is importantnot only for meeting various compliance requirements but also becauseinappropriate insider access is a major source of security breaches andattacks. An automated user provisioning capability within an identitycloud solution can be important not only in its own right but also aspart of a hybrid IAM solution whereby IDCS provisioning may providegreater flexibility than an on-premise solution for transitions as acompany downsizes, upsizes, merges, or looks to integrate existingsystems with IaaS/PaaS/SaaS environments. An IDCS approach can save timeand effort in one-off upgrades and ensure appropriate integration amongnecessary departments, divisions, and systems. The need to scale thistechnology often sneaks up on corporations, and the ability to deliver ascalable IDCS capability immediately across the enterprise can providebenefits in flexibility, cost, and control.

Generally, an employee is granted additional privileges (i.e.,“privilege creep”) over the years as her/his job changes. Companies thatare lightly regulated generally lack an “attestation” process thatrequires managers to regularly audit their employees' privileges (e.g.,access to networks, servers, applications, and data) to halt or slow theprivilege creep that results in over-privileged accounts. Accordingly,one embodiment may provide a regularly conducted (at least once a year)attestation process. Further, with mergers and acquisitions, the needfor these tools and services increases exponentially as users are onSaaS systems, on-premise, span different departments, and/or are beingde-provisioned or re-allocated. The move to cloud can further complicatethis situation, and the process can quickly escalate beyond existing,often manually managed, certification methods. Accordingly, oneembodiment automates these functions and applies sophisticated analyticsto user profiles, access history, provisioning/de-provisioning, andfine-grained entitlements.

One embodiment provides identity analytics. Generally, the ability tointegrate identity analytics with the IAM engine for comprehensivecertification and attestation can be critical to securing anorganization's risk profile. Properly deployed identity analytics candemand total internal policy enforcement. Identity analytics thatprovide a unified single management view across cloud and on-premise aremuch needed in a proactive governance, risk, and compliance (“GRC”)enterprise environment, and can aid in providing a closed-loop processfor reducing risk and meeting compliance regulations. Accordingly, oneembodiment provides identity analytics that are easily customizable bythe client to accommodate specific industry demands and governmentregulations for reports and analysis required by managers, executives,and auditors.

One embodiment provides self-service and access request functionality toimprove the experience and efficiency of the end user and to reducecosts from help desk calls. Generally, while a number of companiesdeploy on-premise self-service access request for their employees, manyhave not extended these systems adequately outside the formal corporatewalls. Beyond employee use, a positive digital customer experienceincreases business credibility and ultimately contributes to revenueincrease, and companies not only save on customer help desk calls andcosts but also improve customer satisfaction. Accordingly, oneembodiment provides an identity cloud service environment that is basedon open standards and seamlessly integrates with existing access controlsoftware and MFA mechanisms when necessary. The SaaS delivery modelsaves time and effort formerly devoted to systems upgrades andmaintenance, freeing professional IT staff to focus on more corebusiness applications.

One embodiment provides privileged account management (“PAM”).Generally, every organization, whether using SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, oron-premise applications, is vulnerable to unauthorized privilegedaccount abuse by insiders with super-user access credentials such assystem administrators, executives, HR officers, contractors, systemsintegrators, etc. Moreover, outside threats typically first breach alow-level user account to eventually reach and exploit privileged useraccess controls within the enterprise system. Accordingly, oneembodiment provides PAM to prevent such unauthorized insider accountuse. The main component of a PAM solution is a password vault which maybe delivered in various ways, e.g., as software to be installed on anenterprise server, as a virtual appliance also on an enterprise server,as a packaged hardware/software appliance, or as part of a cloudservice. PAM functionality is similar to a physical safe used to storepasswords kept in an envelope and changed periodically, with a manifestfor signing them in and out. One embodiment allows for a passwordcheckout as well as setting time limits, forcing periodic changes,automatically tracking checkout, and reporting on all activities. Oneembodiment provides a way to connect directly through to a requestedresource without the user ever knowing the password. This capabilityalso paves the way for session management and additional functionality.

Generally, most cloud services utilize APIs and administrativeinterfaces, which provide opportunities for infiltrators to circumventsecurity. Accordingly, one embodiment accounts for these holes in PAMpractices as the move to the cloud presents new challenges for PAM. Manysmall to medium sized businesses now administer their own SaaS systems(e.g., Office 365), while larger companies increasingly have individualbusiness units spinning up their own SaaS and IaaS services. Thesecustomers find themselves with PAM capabilities within the identitycloud service solutions or from their IaaS/PaaS provider but with littleexperience in handling this responsibility. Moreover, in some cases,many different geographically dispersed business units are trying tosegregate administrative responsibilities for the same SaaSapplications. Accordingly, one embodiment allows customers in thesesituations to link existing PAM into the overall identity framework ofthe identity cloud service and move toward greater security andcompliance with the assurance of scaling to cloud load requirements asbusiness needs dictate.

API Platform

Embodiments provide an API platform that exposes a collection ofcapabilities as services. The APIs are aggregated into microservices andeach microservice exposes one or more of the APIs. That is, eachmicroservice may expose different types of APIs. In one embodiment, eachmicroservice communicates only through its APIs. In one embodiment, eachAPI may be a microservice. In one embodiment, multiple APIs areaggregated into a service based on a target capability to be provided bythat service (e.g., OAuth, SAML, Admin, etc.). As a result, similar APIsare not exposed as separate runtime processes. The APIs are what is madeavailable to a service consumer to use the services provided by IDCS.

Generally, in the web environment of IDCS, a URL includes three parts: ahost, a microservice, and a resource (e.g., host/microservice/resource).In one embodiment, the microservice is characterized by having aspecific URL prefix, e.g., “host/oauth/v1” where the actual microserviceis “oauth/v1”, and under “oauth/v1” there are multiple APIs, e.g., anAPI to request tokens: “host/oauth/v1/token”, an API to authenticate auser: “host/oauth/v1/authorize”, etc. That is, the URL implements amicroservice, and the resource portion of the URL implements an API.Accordingly, multiple APIs are aggregated under the same microservice.In one embodiment, the host portion of the URL identifies a tenant(e.g., https://tenant3.identity.oraclecloud.com:/oauth/v1/token”).

Configuring applications that integrate with external services with thenecessary endpoints and keeping that configuration up to date istypically a challenge. To meet this challenge, embodiments expose apublic discovery API at a well-known location from where applicationscan discover the information about IDCS they need in order to consumeIDCS APIs. In one embodiment, two discovery documents are supported:IDCS Configuration (which includes IDCS, SAML, SCIM, OAuth, and OpenIDConnect configuration, at e.g.,<IDCS-URL>/.well-known/idcs-configuration), and Industry-standard OpenIDConnect Configuration (at, e.g.,<IDCS-URL>/.well-known/openid-configuration). Applications can retrievediscovery documents by being configured with a single IDCS URL.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram providing a system view 600 of IDCS in oneembodiment. In FIG. 6, any one of a variety of applications/services 602may make HTTP calls to IDCS APIs to use IDCS services. Examples of suchapplications/services 602 are web applications, native applications(e.g., applications that are built to run on a specific operatingsystem, such as Windows applications, iOS applications, Androidapplications, etc.), web services, customer applications, partnerapplications, or any services provided by a public cloud, such asSoftware as a Service (“SaaS”), PaaS, and Infrastructure as a Service(“IaaS”).

In one embodiment, the HTTP requests of applications/services 602 thatrequire IDCS services go through an Oracle Public Cloud BIG-IP appliance604 and an IDCS BIG-IP appliance 606 (or similar technologies such as aLoad Balancer, or a component called a Cloud Load Balancer as a Service(“LBaaS”) that implements appropriate security rules to protect thetraffic). However, the requests can be received in any manner. At IDCSBIG-IP appliance 606 (or, as applicable, a similar technology such as aLoad Balancer or a Cloud LBaaS), a cloud provisioning engine 608performs tenant and service orchestration. In one embodiment, cloudprovisioning engine 608 manages internal security artifacts associatedwith a new tenant being on-boarded into the cloud or a new serviceinstance purchased by a customer.

The HTTP requests are then received by an IDCS web routing tier 610 thatimplements a security gate (i.e., Cloud Gate) and provides servicerouting and microservices registration and discovery 612. Depending onthe service requested, the HTTP request is forwarded to an IDCSmicroservice in the IDCS middle tier 614. IDCS microservices processexternal and internal HTTP requests. IDCS microservices implementplatform services and infrastructure services. IDCS platform servicesare separately deployed Java-based runtime services implementing thebusiness of IDCS. IDCS infrastructure services are separately deployedruntime services providing infrastructure support for IDCS. IDCS furtherincludes infrastructure libraries that are common code packaged asshared libraries used by IDCS services and shared libraries.Infrastructure services and libraries provide supporting capabilities asrequired by platform services for implementing their functionality.

Platform Services

In one embodiment, IDCS supports standard authentication protocols,hence IDCS microservices include platform services such as OpenIDConnect, OAuth, SAML2, System for Cross-domain Identity Management++(“SCIM++”), etc.

The OpenID Connect platform service implements standard OpenID ConnectLogin/Logout flows. Interactive web-based and native applicationsleverage standard browser-based OpenID Connect flow to request userauthentication, receiving standard identity tokens that are JavaScriptObject Notation (“JSON”) Web Tokens (“JWTs”) conveying the user'sauthenticated identity. Internally, the runtime authentication model isstateless, maintaining the user's authentication/session state in theform of a host HTTP cookie (including the JWT identity token). Theauthentication interaction initiated via the OpenID Connect protocol isdelegated to a trusted SSO service that implements the user login/logoutceremonies for local and federated logins. Further details of thisfunctionality are disclosed below with reference to FIGS. 10 and 11. Inone embodiment, OpenID Connect functionality is implemented accordingto, for example, OpenID Foundation standards.

The OAuth2 platform service provides token authorization services. Itprovides a rich API infrastructure for creating and validating accesstokens conveying user rights to make API calls. It supports a range ofuseful token grant types, enabling customers to securely connect clientsto their services. It implements standard 2-legged and 3-legged OAuth2token grant types. Support for OpenID Connect (“OIDC”) enables compliantapplications (OIDC relaying parties (“RP”s)) to integrate with IDCS asthe identity provider (OIDC OpenID provider (“OP”)). Similarly, theintegration of IDCS as OIDC RP with social OIDC OP (e.g., Facebook,Google, etc.) enables customers to allow social identities policy-basedaccess to applications. In one embodiment, OAuth functionality isimplemented according to, for example, Internet Engineering Task Force(“IETF”), Request for Comments (“RFC”) 6749.

The SAML2 platform service provides identity federation services. Itenables customers to set up federation agreements with their partnersbased on SAML identity provider (“IDP”) and SAML service provider (“SP”)relationship models. In one embodiment, the SAML2 platform serviceimplements standard SAML2 Browser POST Login and Logout Profiles. In oneembodiment, SAML functionality is implemented according to, for example,IETF, RFC 7522.

SCIM is an open standard for automating the exchange of user identityinformation between identity domains or information technology (“IT”)systems, as provided by, e.g., IETF, RFCs 7642, 7643, 7644. The SCIM++platform service provides identity administration services and enablescustomers to access IDP features of IDCS. The administration servicesexpose a set of stateless REST interfaces (i.e., APIs) that coveridentity lifecycle, password management, group management, etc.,exposing such artifacts as web-accessible resources.

All IDCS configuration artifacts are resources, and the APIs of theadministration services allow for managing IDCS resources (e.g., users,roles, password policies, applications, SAML/OIDC identity providers,SAML service providers, keys, certifications, notification templates,etc.). Administration services leverage and extend the SCIM standard toimplement schema-based REST APIs for Create, Read, Update, Delete, andQuery (“CRUDQ”) operations on all IDCS resources. Additionally, allinternal resources of IDCS used for administration and configuration ofIDCS itself are exposed as SCIM-based REST APIs. Access to the identitystore 618 is isolated to the SCIM++ API.

In one embodiment, for example, the SCIM standard is implemented tomanage the users and groups resources as defined by the SCIMspecifications, while SCIM++ is configured to support additional IDCSinternal resources (e.g., password policies, roles, settings, etc.)using the language defined by the SCIM standard.

The Administration service supports the SCIM 2.0 standard endpoints withthe standard SCIM 2.0 core schemas and schema extensions where needed.In addition, the Administration service supports several SCIM 2.0compliant endpoint extensions to manage other IDCS resources, forexample, Users, Groups, Applications, Settings, etc. The Administrationservice also supports a set of remote procedure call-style (“RPC-style”)REST interfaces that do not perform CRUDQ operations but instead providea functional service, for example, “UserPasswordGenerator,”“UserPasswordValidator,” etc.

IDCS Administration APIs use the OAuth2 protocol for authentication andauthorization. IDCS supports common OAuth2 scenarios such as scenariosfor web server, mobile, and JavaScript applications. Access to IDCS APIsis protected by access tokens. To access IDCS Administration APIs, anapplication needs to be registered as an OAuth2 client or an IDCSApplication (in which case the OAuth2 client is created automatically)through the IDCS Administration console and be granted desired IDCSAdministration Roles. When making IDCS Administration API calls, theapplication first requests an access token from the IDCS OAuth2 Service.After acquiring the token, the application sends the access token to theIDCS API by including it in the HTTP authorization header. Applicationscan use IDCS Administration REST APIs directly, or use an IDCS JavaClient API Library.

Infrastructure Services

The IDCS infrastructure services support the functionality of IDCSplatform services. These runtime services include an event processingservice (for asynchronously processing user notifications, applicationsubscriptions, and auditing to database); a job scheduler service (forscheduling and executing jobs, e.g., executing immediately or at aconfigured time long-running tasks that do not require userintervention); a cache management service; a storage management service(for integrating with a public cloud storage service); a reports service(for generating reports and dashboards); an SSO service (for managinginternal user authentication and SSO); a user interface (“UI”) service(for hosting different types of UI clients); and a service managerservice. Service manager is an internal interface between the OraclePublic Cloud and IDCS. Service manager manages commands issued by theOracle Public Cloud, where the commands need to be implemented by IDCS.For example, when a customer signs up for an account in a cloud storebefore they can buy something, the cloud sends a request to IDCS askingto create a tenant. In this case, service manager implements the cloudspecific operations that the cloud expects IDCS to support.

An IDCS microservice may call another IDCS microservice through anetwork interface (i.e., an HTTP request).

In one embodiment, IDCS may also provide a schema service (or apersistence service) that allows for using a database schema. A schemaservice allows for delegating the responsibility of managing databaseschemas to IDCS. Accordingly, a user of IDCS does not need to manage adatabase since there is an IDCS service that provides thatfunctionality. For example, the user may use the database to persistschemas on a per tenant basis, and when there is no more space in thedatabase, the schema service will manage the functionality of obtaininganother database and growing the space so that the users do not have tomanage the database themselves.

IDCS further includes data stores which are data repositoriesrequired/generated by IDCS, including an identity store 618 (storingusers, groups, etc.), a global database 620 (storing configuration dataused by IDCS to configure itself), an operational schema 622 (providingper tenant schema separation and storing customer data on a per customerbasis), an audit schema 624 (storing audit data), a caching cluster 626(storing cached objects to speed up performance), etc. All internal andexternal IDCS consumers integrate with the identity services overstandards-based protocols. This enables use of a domain name system(“DNS”) to resolve where to route requests, and decouples consumingapplications from understanding the internal implementation of identityservices.

Real-Time and Near-Real-Time Tasks

IDCS separates the tasks of a requested service into synchronousreal-time and asynchronous near-real-time tasks, where real-time tasksinclude only the operations that are needed for the user to proceed. Inone embodiment, a real-time task is a task that is performed withminimal delay, and a near-real-time task is a task that is performed inthe background without the user having to wait for it. In oneembodiment, a real-time task is a task that is performed withsubstantially no delay or with negligible delay, and appears to a useras being performed almost instantaneously.

The real-time tasks perform the main business functionality of aspecific identity service. For example, when requesting a login service,an application sends a message to authenticate a user's credentials andget a session cookie in return. What the user experiences is logginginto the system. However, several other tasks may be performed inconnection with the user's logging in, such as validating who the useris, auditing, sending notifications, etc. Accordingly, validating thecredentials is a task that is performed in real-time so that the user isgiven an HTTP cookie to start a session, but the tasks related tonotifications (e.g., sending an email to notify the creation of anaccount), audits (e.g., tracking/recording), etc., are near-real-timetasks that can be performed asynchronously so that the user can proceedwith least delay.

When an HTTP request for a microservice is received, the correspondingreal-time tasks are performed by the microservice in the middle tier,and the remaining near-real-time tasks such as operational logic/eventsthat are not necessarily subject to real-time processing are offloadedto message queues 628 that support a highly scalable asynchronous eventmanagement system 630 with guaranteed delivery and processing.Accordingly, certain behaviors are pushed from the front end to thebackend to enable IDCS to provide high level service to the customers byreducing latencies in response times. For example, a login process mayinclude validation of credentials, submission of a log report, updatingof the last login time, etc., but these tasks can be offloaded to amessage queue and performed in near-real-time as opposed to real-time.

In one example, a system may need to register or create a new user. Thesystem calls an IDCS SCIM API to create a user. The end result is thatwhen the user is created in identity store 618, the user gets anotification email including a link to reset their password. When IDCSreceives a request to register or create a new user, the correspondingmicroservice looks at configuration data in the operational database(located in global database 620 in FIG. 6) and determines that the“create user” operation is marked with a “create user” event which isidentified in the configuration data as an asynchronous operation. Themicroservice returns to the client and indicates that the creation ofthe user is done successfully, but the actual sending of thenotification email is postponed and pushed to the backend. In order todo so, the microservice uses a messaging API 616 to queue the message inqueue 628 which is a store.

In order to dequeue queue 628, a messaging microservice, which is aninfrastructure microservice, continually runs in the background andscans queue 628 looking for events in queue 628. The events in queue 628are processed by event subscribers 630 such as audit, user notification,application subscriptions, data analytics, etc. Depending on the taskindicated by an event, event subscribers 630 may communicate with, forexample, audit schema 624, a user notification service 634, an identityevent subscriber 632, etc. For example, when the messaging microservicefinds the “create user” event in queue 628, it executes thecorresponding notification logic and sends the corresponding email tothe user.

In one embodiment, queue 628 queues operational events published bymicroservices 614 as well as resource events published by APIs 616 thatmanage IDCS resources.

IDCS uses a real-time caching structure to enhance system performanceand user experience. The cache itself may also be provided as amicroservice. IDCS implements an elastic cache cluster 626 that grows asthe number of customers supported by IDCS scales. Cache cluster 626 maybe implemented with a distributed data grid which is disclosed in moredetail below. In one embodiment, write-only resources bypass cache.

In one embodiment, IDCS runtime components publish health andoperational metrics to a public cloud monitoring module 636 thatcollects such metrics of a public cloud such as Oracle Public Cloud fromOracle Corp.

In one embodiment, IDCS may be used to create a user. For example, aclient application 602 may issue a REST API call to create a user. Adminservice (a platform service in 614) delegates the call to a user manager(an infrastructure library/service in 614), which in turn creates theuser in the tenant-specific ID store stripe in ID store 618. On “UserCreate Success”, the user manager audits the operation to the audittable in audit schema 624, and publishes an“identity.user.create.success” event to message queue 628. Identitysubscriber 632 picks up the event and sends a “Welcome” email to thenewly created user, including newly created login details.

In one embodiment, IDCS may be used to grant a role to a user, resultingin a user provisioning action. For example, a client application 602 mayissue a REST API call to grant a user a role. Admin service (a platformservice in 614) delegates the call to a role manager (an infrastructurelibrary/service in 614), who grants the user a role in thetenant-specific ID store stripe in ID store 618. On “Role GrantSuccess”, the role manager audits the operations to the audit table inaudit schema 624, and publishes an “identity.user.role.grant.success”event to message queue 628. Identity subscriber 632 picks up the eventand evaluates the provisioning grant policy. If there is an activeapplication grant on the role being granted, a provisioning subscriberperforms some validation, initiates account creation, calls out thetarget system, creates an account on the target system, and marks theaccount creation as successful. Each of these functionalities may resultin publishing of corresponding events, such as“prov.account.create.initiate”, “prov.target.create.initiate”,“prov.target.create.success”, or “prov.account.create.success”. Theseevents may have their own business metrics aggregating number ofaccounts created in the target system over the last N days.

In one embodiment, IDCS may be used for a user to log in. For example, aclient application 602 may use one of the supported authentication flowsto request a login for a user. IDCS authenticates the user, and uponsuccess, audits the operation to the audit table in audit schema 624.Upon failure, IDCS audits the failure in audit schema 624, and publishes“login.user.login.failure” event in message queue 628. A loginsubscriber picks up the event, updates its metrics for the user, anddetermines if additional analytics on the user's access history need tobe performed.

Accordingly, by implementing “inversion of control” functionality (e.g.,changing the flow of execution to schedule the execution of an operationat a later time so that the operation is under the control of anothersystem), embodiments enable additional event queues and subscribers tobe added dynamically to test new features on a small user sample beforedeploying to broader user base, or to process specific events forspecific internal or external customers.

Stateless Functionality

IDCS microservices are stateless, meaning the microservices themselvesdo not maintain state. “State” refers to the data that an applicationuses in order to perform its capabilities. IDCS provides multi-tenantfunctionality by persisting all state into tenant specific repositoriesin the IDCS data tier. The middle tier (i.e., the code that processesthe requests) does not have data stored in the same location as theapplication code. Accordingly, IDCS is highly scalable, bothhorizontally and vertically.

To scale vertically (or scale up/down) means to add resources to (orremove resources from) a single node in a system, typically involvingthe addition of CPUs or memory to a single computer. Verticalscalability allows an application to scale up to the limits of itshardware. To scale horizontally (or scale out/in) means to add morenodes to (or remove nodes from) a system, such as adding a new computerto a distributed software application. Horizontal scalability allows anapplication to scale almost infinitely, bound only by the amount ofbandwidth provided by the network.

Stateless-ness of the middle tier of IDCS makes it horizontally scalablejust by adding more CPUs, and the IDCS components that perform the workof the application do not need to have a designated physicalinfrastructure where a particular application is running. Stateless-nessof the IDCS middle tier makes IDCS highly available, even when providingidentity services to a very large number of customers/tenants. Each passthrough an IDCS application/service is focused on CPU usage only toperform the application transaction itself but not use hardware to storedata. Scaling is accomplished by adding more slices when the applicationis running, while data for the transaction is stored at a persistencelayer where more copies can be added when needed.

The IDCS web tier, middle tier, and data tier can each scaleindependently and separately. The web tier can be scaled to handle moreHTTP requests. The middle tier can be scaled to support more servicefunctionality. The data tier can be scaled to support more tenants.

IDCS Functional View

FIG. 6A is an example block diagram 600 b of a functional view of IDCSin one embodiment. In block diagram 600 b, the IDCS functional stackincludes services, shared libraries, and data stores. The servicesinclude IDCS platform services 640 b, IDCS premium services 650 b, andIDCS infrastructure services 662 b. In one embodiment, IDCS platformservices 640 b and IDCS premium services 650 b are separately deployedJava-based runtime services implementing the business of IDCS, and IDCSinfrastructure services 662 b are separately deployed runtime servicesproviding infrastructure support for IDCS. The shared libraries includeIDCS infrastructure libraries 680 b which are common code packaged asshared libraries used by IDCS services and shared libraries. The datastores are data repositories required/generated by IDCS, includingidentity store 698 b, global configuration 700 b, message store 702 b,global tenant 704 b, personalization settings 706 b, resources 708 b,user transient data 710 b, system transient data 712 b, per-tenantschemas (managed ExaData) 714 b, operational store (not shown), cachingstore (not shown), etc.

In one embodiment, IDCS platform services 640 b include, for example,OpenID Connect service 642 b, OAuth2 service 644 b, SAML2 service 646 b,and SCIM++ service 648 b. In one embodiment, IDCS premium servicesinclude, for example, cloud SSO and governance 652 b, enterprisegovernance 654 b, AuthN broker 656 b, federation broker 658 b, andprivate account management 660 b.

IDCS infrastructure services 662 b and IDCS infrastructure libraries 680b provide supporting capabilities as required by IDCS platform services640 b to do their work. In one embodiment, IDCS infrastructure services662 b include job scheduler 664 b, UI 666 b, SSO 668 b, reports 670 b,cache 672 b, storage 674 b, service manager 676 b (public cloudcontrol), and event processor 678 b (user notifications, appsubscriptions, auditing, data analytics). In one embodiment, IDCSinfrastructure libraries 680 b include data manager APIs 682 b, eventAPIs 684 b, storage APIs 686 b, authentication APIs 688 b, authorizationAPIs 690 b, cookie APIs 692 b, keys APIs 694 b, and credentials APIs 696b. In one embodiment, cloud compute service 602 b (internal Nimbula)supports the function of IDCS infrastructure services 662 b and IDCSinfrastructure libraries 680 b.

In one embodiment, IDCS provides various UIs 602 b for a consumer ofIDCS services, such as customer end user UI 604 b, customer admin UI 606b, DevOps admin UI 608 b, and login UI 610 b. In one embodiment, IDCSallows for integration 612 b of applications (e.g., customer apps 614 b,partner apps 616 b, and cloud apps 618 b) and firmware integration 620b. In one embodiment, various environments may integrate with IDCS tosupport their access control needs. Such integration may be provided by,for example, identity bridge 622 b (providing AD integration, WNA, andSCIM connector), Apache agent 624 b, or MSFT agent 626 b.

In one embodiment, internal and external IDCS consumers integrate withthe identity services of IDCS over standards-based protocols 628 b, suchas OpenID Connect 630 b, OAuth2 632 b, SAML2 634 b, SCIM 636 b, andREST/HTTP 638 b. This enables use of a domain name system (“DNS”) toresolve where to route requests, and decouples the consumingapplications from understanding internal implementation of the identityservices.

The IDCS functional view in FIG. 6A further includes public cloudinfrastructure services that provide common functionality that IDCSdepends on for user notifications (cloud notification service 718 b),file storage (cloud storage service 716 b), and metrics/alerting forDevOps (cloud monitoring service (EM) 722 b and cloud metrics service(Graphite) 720 b).

Cloud Gate

In one embodiment, IDCS implements a “Cloud Gate” in the web tier. CloudGate is a web server plugin that enables web applications to externalizeuser SSO to an identity management system (e.g., IDCS), similar toWebGate or WebAgent technologies that work with enterprise IDM stacks.Cloud Gate acts as a security gatekeeper that secures access to IDCSAPIs. In one embodiment, Cloud Gate is implemented by a web/proxy serverplugin that provides a web Policy Enforcement Point (“PEP”) forprotecting HTTP resources based on OAuth.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram 700 of an embodiment that implements a CloudGate 702 running in a web server 712 and acting as a Policy EnforcementPoint (“PEP”) configured to integrate with IDCS Policy Decision Point(“PDP”) using open standards (e.g., OAuth2, OpenID Connect, etc.) whilesecuring access to web browser and REST API resources 714 of anapplication. In some embodiments, the PDP is implemented at OAuth and/orOpenID Connect microservices 704. For example, when a user browser 706sends a request to IDCS for a login of a user 710, a corresponding IDCSPDP validates the credentials and then decides whether the credentialsare sufficient (e.g., whether to request for further credentials such asa second password). In the embodiment of FIG. 7, Cloud Gate 702 may actboth as the PEP and as the PDP since it has a local policy.

As part of one-time deployment, Cloud Gate 702 is registered with IDCSas an OAuth2 client, enabling it to request OIDC and OAuth2 operationsagainst IDCS. Thereafter, it maintains configuration information aboutan application's protected and unprotected resources, subject to requestmatching rules (how to match URLs, e.g., with wild cards, regularexpressions, etc.). Cloud Gate 702 can be deployed to protect differentapplications having different security policies, and the protectedapplications can be multi-tenant.

During web browser-based user access, Cloud Gate 702 acts as an OIDC RP718 initiating a user authentication flow. If user 710 has no validlocal user session, Cloud Gate 702 re-directs the user to the SSOmicroservice and participates in the OIDC “Authorization Code” flow withthe SSO microservice. The flow concludes with the delivery of a JWT asan identity token. Cloud Gate 708 validates the JWT (e.g., looks atsignature, expiration, destination/audience, etc.) and issues a localsession cookie for user 710. It acts as a session manager 716 securingweb browser access to protected resources and issuing, updating, andvalidating the local session cookie. It also provides a logout URL forremoval of its local session cookie.

Cloud Gate 702 also acts as an HTTP Basic Auth authenticator, validatingHTTP Basic Auth credentials against IDCS. This behavior is supported inboth session-less and session-based (local session cookie) modes. Noserver-side IDCS session is created in this case.

During programmatic access by REST API clients 708, Cloud Gate 702 mayact as an OAuth2 resource server/filter 720 for an application'sprotected REST APIs 714. It checks for the presence of a request with anauthorization header and an access token. When client 708 (e.g., mobile,web apps, JavaScript, etc.) presents an access token (issued by IDCS) touse with a protected REST API 714, Cloud Gate 702 validates the accesstoken before allowing access to the API (e.g., signature, expiration,audience, etc.). The original access token is passed along unmodified.

Generally, OAuth is used to generate either a client identitypropagation token (e.g., indicating who the client is) or a useridentity propagation token (e.g., indicating who the user is). In theembodiments, the implementation of OAuth in Cloud Gate is based on a JWTwhich defines a format for web tokens, as provided by, e.g., IETF, RFC7519.

When a user logs in, a JWT is issued. The JWT is signed by IDCS andsupports multi-tenant functionality in IDCS. Cloud Gate validates theJWT issued by IDCS to allow for multi-tenant functionality in IDCS.Accordingly, IDCS provides multi-tenancy in the physical structure aswell as in the logical business process that underpins the securitymodel.

Tenancy Types

IDCS specifies three types of tenancies: customer tenancy, clienttenancy, and user tenancy. Customer or resource tenancy specifies whothe customer of IDCS is (i.e., for whom is the work being performed).Client tenancy specifies which client application is trying to accessdata (i.e., what application is doing the work). User tenancy specifieswhich user is using the application to access data (i.e., by whom is thework being performed). For example, when a professional services companyprovides system integration functionality for a warehouse club and usesIDCS for providing identity management for the warehouse club systems,user tenancy corresponds to the professional services company, clienttenancy is the application that is used to provide system integrationfunctionality, and customer tenancy is the warehouse club.

Separation and identification of these three tenancies enablesmulti-tenant functionality in a cloud-based service. Generally, foron-premise software that is installed on a physical machine on-premise,there is no need to specify three different tenancies since a user needsto be physically on the machine to log in. However, in a cloud-basedservice structure, embodiments use tokens to determine who is using whatapplication to access which resources. The three tenancies are codifiedby tokens, enforced by Cloud Gate, and used by the business services inthe middle tier. In one embodiment, an OAuth server generates thetokens. In various embodiments, the tokens may be used in conjunctionwith any security protocol other than OAuth.

Decoupling user, client, and resource tenancies provides substantialbusiness advantages for the users of the services provided by IDCS. Forexample, it allows a service provider that understands the needs of abusiness (e.g., a healthcare business) and their identity managementproblems to buy services provided by IDCS, develop their own backendapplication that consumes the services of IDCS, and provide the backendapplications to the target businesses. Accordingly, the service providermay extend the services of IDCS to provide their desired capabilitiesand offer those to certain target businesses. The service provider doesnot have to build and run software to provide identity services but caninstead extend and customize the services of IDCS to suit the needs ofthe target businesses.

Some known systems only account for a single tenancy which is customertenancy. However, such systems are inadequate when dealing with accessby a combination of users such as customer users, customer's partners,customer's clients, clients themselves, or clients that customer hasdelegated access to. Defining and enforcing multiple tenancies in theembodiments facilitates the identity management functionality over suchvariety of users.

In one embodiment, one entity of IDCS does not belong to multipletenants at the same time; it belongs to only one tenant, and a “tenancy”is where artifacts live. Generally, there are multiple components thatimplement certain functions, and these components can belong to tenantsor they can belong to infrastructure. When infrastructure needs to acton behalf of tenants, it interacts with an entity service on behalf ofthe tenant. In that case, infrastructure itself has its own tenancy andcustomer has its own tenancy. When a request is submitted, there can bemultiple tenancies involved in the request.

For example, a client that belongs to “tenant 1” may execute a requestto get a token for “tenant 2” specifying a user in “tenant 3.” Asanother example, a user living in “tenant 1” may need to perform anaction in an application owned by “tenant 2”. Thus, the user needs to goto the resource namespace of “tenant 2” and request a token forthemselves. Accordingly, delegation of authority is accomplished byidentifying “who” can do “what” to “whom.” As yet another example, afirst user working for a first organization (“tenant 1”) may allow asecond user working for a second organization (“tenant 2”) to haveaccess to a document hosted by a third organization (“tenant 3”).

In one example, a client in “tenant 1” may request an access token for auser in “tenant 2” to access an application in “tenant 3”. The clientmay do so by invoking an OAuth request for the token by going to“http://tenant3/oauth/token”. The client identifies itself as a clientthat lives in “tenant 1” by including a “client assertion” in therequest. The client assertion includes a client ID (e.g., “client 1”)and the client tenancy “tenant 1”. As “client 1” in “tenant 1”, theclient has the right to invoke a request for a token on “tenant 3”, andthe client wants the token for a user in “tenant 2”. Accordingly, a“user assertion” is also passed as part of the same HTTP request. Theaccess token that is generated will be issued in the context of thetarget tenancy which is the application tenancy (“tenant 3”) and willinclude the user tenancy (“tenant 2”).

In one embodiment, in the data tier, each tenant is implemented as aseparate stripe. From a data management perspective, artifacts live in atenant. From a service perspective, a service knows how to work withdifferent tenants, and the multiple tenancies are different dimensionsin the business function of a service. FIG. 8 illustrates an examplesystem 800 implementing multiple tenancies in an embodiment. System 800includes a client 802 that requests a service provided by a microservice804 that understands how to work with data in a database 806. Thedatabase includes multiple tenants 808 and each tenant includes theartifacts of the corresponding tenancy. In one embodiment, microservice804 is an OAuth microservice requested throughhttps://tenant3/oauth/token for getting a token. The function of theOAuth microservice is performed in microservice 804 using data fromdatabase 806 to verify that the request of client 802 is legitimate, andif it is legitimate, use the data from different tenancies 808 toconstruct the token. Accordingly, system 800 is multi-tenant in that itcan work in a cross-tenant environment by not only supporting servicescoming into each tenancy, but also supporting services that can act onbehalf of different tenants.

System 800 is advantageous since microservice 804 is physicallydecoupled from the data in database 806, and by replicating the dataacross locations that are closer to the client, microservice 804 can beprovided as a local service to the clients and system 800 can manage theavailability of the service and provide it globally.

In one embodiment, microservice 804 is stateless, meaning that themachine that runs microservice 804 does not maintain any markerspointing the service to any specific tenants. Instead, a tenancy may bemarked, for example, on the host portion of a URL of a request thatcomes in. That tenancy points to one of tenants 808 in database 806.When supporting a large number of tenants (e.g., millions of tenants),microservice 804 cannot have the same number of connections to database806, but instead uses a connection pool 810 which provides the actualphysical connections to database 806 in the context of a database user.

Generally, connections are built by supplying an underlying driver orprovider with a connection string, which is used to address a specificdatabase or server and to provide instance and user authenticationcredentials (e.g., “Server=sql_box;Database=Common;UserID=uid;Pwd=password;”). Once a connection has been built, it can beopened and closed, and properties (e.g., the command time-out length, ortransaction, if one exists) can be set. The connection string includes aset of key-value pairs, dictated by the data access interface of thedata provider. A connection pool is a cache of database connectionsmaintained so that the connections can be reused when future requests toa database are required. In connection pooling, after a connection iscreated, it is placed in the pool and it is used again so that a newconnection does not have to be established. For example, when thereneeds to be ten connections between microservice 804 and database 808,there will be ten open connections in connection pool 810, all in thecontext of a database user (e.g., in association with a specificdatabase user, e.g., who is the owner of that connection, whosecredentials are being validated, is it a database user, is it a systemcredential, etc.).

The connections in connection pool 810 are created for a system userthat can access anything. Therefore, in order to correctly handleauditing and privileges by microservice 804 processing requests onbehalf of a tenant, the database operation is performed in the contextof a “proxy user” 812 associated with the schema owner assigned to thespecific tenant. This schema owner can access only the tenancy that theschema was created for, and the value of the tenancy is the value of theschema owner. When a request is made for data in database 806,microservice 804 uses the connections in connection pool 810 to providethat data. Accordingly, multi-tenancy is achieved by having stateless,elastic middle tier services process incoming requests in the context of(e.g., in association with) the tenant-specific data store bindingestablished on a per request basis on top of the data connection createdin the context of (e.g., in association with) the data store proxy userassociated with the resource tenancy, and the database can scaleindependently of the services.

The following provides an example functionality for implementing proxyuser 812:

dbOperation=<prepare DB command to execute>

dbConnection=getDBConnectionFromPool( )

dbConnection.setProxyUser (resourceTenant)

result=dbConnection.executeOperation (dbOperation)

In this functionality, microservice 804 sets the “Proxy User” setting onthe connection pulled from connection pool 810 to the “Tenant,” andperforms the database operation in the context of the tenant while usingthe database connection in connection pool 810.

When striping every table to configure different columns in a samedatabase for different tenants, one table may include all tenants' datamixed together. In contrast, one embodiment provides a tenant-drivendata tier. The embodiment does not stripe the same database fordifferent tenants, but instead provides a different physical databaseper tenant. For example, multi-tenancy may be implemented by using apluggable database (e.g., Oracle Database 12 c from Oracle Corp.) whereeach tenant is allocated a separate partition. At the data tier, aresource manager processes the request and then asks for the data sourcefor the request (separate from metadata). The embodiment performsruntime switch to a respective data source/store per request. Byisolating each tenant's data from the other tenants, the embodimentprovides improved data security.

In one embodiment, various tokens codify different tenancies. A URLtoken may identify the tenancy of the application that requests aservice. An identity token may codify the identity of a user that is tobe authenticated. An access token may identify multiple tenancies. Forexample, an access token may codify the tenancy that is the target ofsuch access (e.g., an application tenancy) as well as the user tenancyof the user that is given access. A client assertion token may identifya client ID and the client tenancy. A user-assertion token may identifythe user and the user tenancy.

In one embodiment, an identity token includes at least a claim/statementindicating the user tenant name (i.e., where the user lives). A “claim”(as used by one of ordinary skill in the security field) in connectionwith authorization tokens is a statement that one subject makes aboutitself or another subject. The statement can be about a name, identity,key, group, privilege, or capability, for example. Claims are issued bya provider, and they are given one or more values and then packaged insecurity tokens that are issued by an issuer, commonly known as asecurity token service (“STS”).

In one embodiment, an access token includes at least a claim/statementindicating the resource tenant name at the time the request for theaccess token was made (e.g., the customer), a claim indicating the usertenant name, a claim indicating the name of the OAuth client making therequest, and a claim indicating the client tenant name. In oneembodiment, an access token may be implemented according to thefollowing JSON functionality:

{ ...  ″ tok_type ″ : ″AT″,  ″user_id″ : ″testuser″,  ″user_tenantname″: ″<value-of-identity-tenant>″  “tenant” : “<value-of-resource-tenant>” “client_id” : “testclient”,  “client_tenantname”:“<value-of-client-tenant>” ... }

In one embodiment, a client assertion token includes at least a claimindicating the client tenant name, and a claim indicating the name ofthe OAuth client making the request.

The tokens and/or multiple tenancies described herein may be implementedin any multi-tenant cloud-based service other than IDCS. For example,the tokens and/or multiple tenancies described herein may be implementedin SaaS or Enterprise Resource Planning (“ERP”) services.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a network view 900 of IDCS in oneembodiment. FIG. 9 illustrates network interactions that are performedin one embodiment between application “zones” 904. Applications arebroken into zones based on the required level of protection and theimplementation of connections to various other systems (e.g., SSL zone,no SSL zone, etc.). Some application zones provide services that requireaccess from the inside of IDCS, while some application zones provideservices that require access from the outside of IDCS, and some are openaccess. Accordingly, a respective level of protection is enforced foreach zone.

In the embodiment of FIG. 9, service to service communication isperformed using HTTP requests. In one embodiment, IDCS uses the accesstokens described herein not only to provide services but also to secureaccess to and within IDCS itself. In one embodiment, IDCS microservicesare exposed through RESTful interfaces and secured by the tokensdescribed herein.

In the embodiment of FIG. 9, any one of a variety ofapplications/services 902 may make HTTP calls to IDCS APIs to use IDCSservices. In one embodiment, the HTTP requests of applications/services902 go through an Oracle Public Cloud Load Balancing External Virtual IPaddress (“VIP”) 906 (or other similar technologies), a public cloud webrouting tier 908, and an IDCS Load Balancing Internal VIP appliance 910(or other similar technologies), to be received by IDCS web routing tier912. IDCS web routing tier 912 receives the requests coming in from theoutside or from the inside of IDCS and routes them across either an IDCSplatform services tier 914 or an IDCS infrastructure services tier 916.IDCS platform services tier 914 includes IDCS microservices that areinvoked from the outside of IDCS, such as OpenID Connect, OAuth, SAML,SCIM, etc. IDCS infrastructure services tier 916 includes supportingmicroservices that are invoked from the inside of IDCS to support thefunctionality of other IDCS microservices. Examples of IDCSinfrastructure microservices are UI, SSO, reports, cache, job scheduler,service manager, functionality for making keys, etc. An IDCS cache tier926 supports caching functionality for IDCS platform services tier 914and IDCS infrastructure services tier 916.

By enforcing security both for outside access to IDCS and within IDCS,customers of IDCS can be provided with outstanding security compliancefor the applications they run.

In the embodiment of FIG. 9, other than the data tier 918 whichcommunicates based on Structured Query Language (“SQL”) and the ID storetier 920 that communicates based on LDAP, OAuth protocol is used toprotect the communication among IDCS components (e.g., microservices)within IDCS, and the same tokens that are used for securing access fromthe outside of IDCS are also used for security within IDCS. That is, webrouting tier 912 uses the same tokens and protocols for processing therequests it receives regardless of whether a request is received fromthe outside of IDCS or from the inside of IDCS. Accordingly, IDCSprovides a single consistent security model for protecting the entiresystem, thereby allowing for outstanding security compliance since thefewer security models implemented in a system, the more secure thesystem is.

In the IDCS cloud environment, applications communicate by makingnetwork calls. The network call may be based on an applicable networkprotocol such as HTTP, Transmission Control Protocol (“TCP”), UserDatagram Protocol (“UDP”), etc. For example, an application “X” maycommunicate with an application “Y” based on HTTP by exposingapplication “Y” as an HTTP Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”). In oneembodiment, “Y” is an IDCS microservice that exposes a number ofresources each corresponding to a capability. When “X” (e.g., anotherIDCS microservice) needs to call “Y”, it constructs a URL that includes“Y” and the resource/capability that needs to be invoked (e.g.,https:/host/Y/resource), and makes a corresponding REST call which goesthrough web routing tier 912 and gets directed to “Y”.

In one embodiment, a caller outside the IDCS may not need to know where“Y” is, but web routing tier 912 needs to know where application “Y” isrunning. In one embodiment, IDCS implements discovery functionality(implemented by an API of OAuth service) to determine where eachapplication is running so that there is no need for the availability ofstatic routing information.

In one embodiment, an enterprise manager (“EM”) 922 provides a “singlepane of glass” that extends on-premise and cloud-based management toIDCS. In one embodiment, a “Chef” server 924 which is a configurationmanagement tool from Chef Software, Inc., provides configurationmanagement functionality for various IDCS tiers. In one embodiment, aservice deployment infrastructure and/or a persistent stored module 928may send OAuth2 HTTP messages to IDCS web routing tier 912 for tenantlifecycle management operations, public cloud lifecycle managementoperations, or other operations. In one embodiment, IDCS infrastructureservices tier 916 may send ID/password HTTP messages to a public cloudnotification service 930 or a public cloud storage service 932.

Cloud Access Control—SSO

One embodiment supports lightweight cloud standards for implementing acloud scale SSO service. Examples of lightweight cloud standards areHTTP, REST, and any standard that provides access through a browser(since a web browser is lightweight). On the contrary, SOAP is anexample of a heavy cloud standard which requires more management,configuration, and tooling to build a client with. The embodiment usesOpenID Connect semantics for applications to request user authenticationagainst IDCS. The embodiment uses lightweight HTTP cookie-based usersession tracking to track user's active sessions at IDCS withoutstatefull server-side session support. The embodiment uses JWT-basedidentity tokens for applications to use in mapping an authenticatedidentity back to their own local session. The embodiment supportsintegration with federated identity management systems, and exposes SAMLIDP support for enterprise deployments to request user authenticationagainst IDCS.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram 1000 of a system architecture view of SSOfunctionality in IDCS in one embodiment. The embodiment enables clientapplications to leverage standards-based web protocols to initiate userauthentication flows. Applications requiring SSO integration with acloud system may be located in enterprise data centers, in remotepartner data centers, or even operated by a customer on-premise. In oneembodiment, different IDCS platform services implement the business ofSSO, such as OpenID Connect for processing login/logout requests fromconnected native applications (i.e., applications utilizing OpenIDConnect to integrate with IDCS); SAML IDP service for processingbrowser-based login/logout requests from connected applications; SAML SPservice for orchestrating user authentication against an external SAMLIDP; and an internal IDCS SSO service for orchestrating end user loginceremony including local or federated login flows, and for managing IDCShost session cookie. Generally, HTTP works either with a form or withouta form. When it works with a form, the form is seen within a browser.When it works without a form, it functions as a client to servercommunication. Both OpenID Connect and SAML require the ability torender a form, which may be accomplished by presence of a browser orvirtually performed by an application that acts as if there is abrowser. In one embodiment, an application client implementing userauthentication/SSO through IDCS needs to be registered in IDCS as anOAuth2 client and needs to obtain client identifier and credentials(e.g., ID/password, ID/certificate, etc.).

The example embodiment of FIG. 10 includes threecomponents/microservices that collectively provide login capabilities,including two platform microservices: OAuth2 1004 and SAML2 1006, andone infrastructure microservice: SSO 1008. In the embodiment of FIG. 10,IDCS provides an “Identity Metasystem” in which SSO services 1008 areprovided over different types of applications, such as browser based webor native applications 1010 requiring 3-legged OAuth flow and acting asan OpenID Connect relaying party (“RP,” an application that outsourcesits user authentication function to an IDP), native applications 1011requiring 2-legged OAuth flow and acting as an OpenID Connect RP, andweb applications 1012 acting as a SAML SP.

Generally, an Identity Metasystem is an interoperable architecture fordigital identity, allowing for employing a collection of digitalidentities based on multiple underlying technologies, implementations,and providers. LDAP, SAML, and OAuth are examples of different securitystandards that provide identity capability and can be the basis forbuilding applications, and an Identity Metasystem may be configured toprovide a unified security system over such applications. The LDAPsecurity model specifies a specific mechanism for handling identity, andall passes through the system are to be strictly protected. SAML wasdeveloped to allow one set of applications securely exchange informationwith another set of applications that belong to a different organizationin a different security domain. Since there is no trust between the twoapplications, SAML was developed to allow for one application toauthenticate another application that does not belong to the sameorganization. OAuth provides OpenID Connect that is a lightweightprotocol for performing web based authentication.

In the embodiment of FIG. 10, when an OpenID application 1010 connectsto an OpenID server in IDCS, its “channels” request SSO service.Similarly, when a SAML application 1012 connects to a SAML server inIDCS, its “channels” also request SSO service. In IDCS, a respectivemicroservice (e.g., an OpenID microservice 1004 and a SAML microservice1006) will handle each of the applications, and these microservicesrequest SSO capability from SSO microservice 1008. This architecture canbe expanded to support any number of other security protocols by addinga microservice for each protocol and then using SSO microservice 1008for SSO capability. SSO microservice 1008 issues the sessions (i.e., anSSO cookie 1014 is provided) and is the only system in the architecturethat has the authority to issue a session. An IDCS session is realizedthrough the use of SSO cookie 1014 by browser 1002. Browser 1002 alsouses a local session cookie 1016 to manage its local session.

In one embodiment, for example, within a browser, a user may use a firstapplication based on SAML and get logged in, and later use a secondapplication built with a different protocol such as OAuth. The user isprovided with SSO on the second application within the same browser.Accordingly, the browser is the state or user agent and maintains thecookies.

In one embodiment, SSO microservice 1008 provides login ceremony 1018,ID/password recovery 1020, first time login flow 1022, an authenticationmanager 1024, an HTTP cookie manager 1026, and an event manager 1028.Login ceremony 1018 implements SSO functionality based on customersettings and/or application context, and may be configured according toa local form (i.e., basic Auth), an external SAML IDP, an external OIDCIDP, etc. ID/password recovery 1020 is used to recover a user's IDand/or password. First time login flow 1022 is implemented when a userlogs in for the first time (i.e., an SSO session does not yet exist).Authentication manager 1024 issues authentication tokens upon successfulauthentication. HTTP cookie manager 1026 saves the authentication tokenin an SSO cookie. Event manager 1028 publishes events related to SSOfunctionality.

In one embodiment, interactions between OAuth microservice 1004 and SSOmicroservice 1008 are based on browser redirects so that SSOmicroservice 1008 challenges the user using an HTML form, validatescredentials, and issues a session cookie.

In one embodiment, for example, OAuth microservice 1004 may receive anauthorization request from browser 1002 to authenticate a user of anapplication according to 3-legged OAuth flow. OAuth microservice 1004then acts as an OIDC provider 1030, redirects browser 1002 to SSOmicroservice 1008, and passes along application context. Depending onwhether the user has a valid SSO session or not, SSO microservice 1008either validates the existing session or performs a login ceremony. Uponsuccessful authentication or validation, SSO microservice 1008 returnsauthentication context to OAuth microservice 1004. OAuth microservice1004 then redirects browser 1002 to a callback URL with an authorization(“AZ”) code. Browser 1002 sends the AZ code to OAuth microservice 1004to request the required tokens 1032. Browser 1002 also includes itsclient credentials (obtained when registering in IDCS as an OAuth2client) in the HTTP authorization header. OAuth microservice 1004 inreturn provides the required tokens 1032 to browser 1002. In oneembodiment, tokens 1032 provided to browser 1002 include JW identity andaccess tokens signed by the IDCS OAuth2 server. Further details of thisfunctionality are disclosed below with reference to FIG. 11.

In one embodiment, for example, OAuth microservice 1004 may receive anauthorization request from a native application 1011 to authenticate auser according to a 2-legged OAuth flow. In this case, an authenticationmanager 1034 in OAuth microservice 1004 performs the correspondingauthentication (e.g., based on ID/password received from a client 1011)and a token manager 1036 issues a corresponding access token uponsuccessful authentication.

In one embodiment, for example, SAML microservice 1006 may receive anSSO POST request from a browser to authenticate a user of a webapplication 1012 that acts as a SAML SP. SAML microservice 1006 thenacts as a SAML IDP 1038, redirects browser 1002 to SSO microservice1008, and passes along application context. Depending on whether theuser has a valid SSO session or not, SSO microservice 1008 eithervalidates the existing session or performs a login ceremony. Uponsuccessful authentication or validation, SSO microservice 1008 returnsauthentication context to SAML microservice 1006. SAML microservice thenredirects to the SP with required tokens.

In one embodiment, for example, SAML microservice 1006 may act as a SAMLSP 1040 and go to a remote SAML IDP 1042 (e.g., an active directoryfederation service (“ADFS”)). One embodiment implements the standardSAML/AD flows. In one embodiment, interactions between SAML microservice1006 and SSO microservice 1008 are based on browser redirects so thatSSO microservice 1008 challenges the user using an HTML form, validatescredentials, and issues a session cookie.

In one embodiment, the interactions between a component within IDCS(e.g., 1004, 1006, 1008) and a component outside IDCS (e.g., 1002, 1011,1042) are performed through firewalls 1044.

Login/Logout Flow

FIG. 11 is a message sequence flow 1100 of SSO functionality provided byIDCS in one embodiment. When a user uses a browser 1102 to access aclient 1106 (e.g., a browser-based application or a mobile/nativeapplication), Cloud Gate 1104 acts as an application enforcement pointand enforces a policy defined in a local policy text file. If Cloud Gate1104 detects that the user has no local application session, it requiresthe user to be authenticated. In order to do so, Cloud Gate 1104redirects browser 1102 to OAuth2 microservice 1110 to initiate OpenIDConnect login flow against the OAuth2 microservice 1110 (3-legged AZGrant flow with scopes=“openid profile”).

The request of browser 1102 traverses IDCS routing tier web service 1108and Cloud Gate 1104 and reaches OAuth2 microservice 1110. OAuth2microservice 1110 constructs the application context (i.e., metadatathat describes the application, e.g., identity of the connectingapplication, client ID, configuration, what the application can do,etc.), and redirects browser 1102 to SSO microservice 1112 to log in.

If the user has a valid SSO session, SSO microservice 1112 validates theexisting session without starting a login ceremony. If the user does nothave a valid SSO session (i.e., no session cookie exists), the SSOmicroservice 1112 initiates the user login ceremony in accordance withcustomer's login preferences (e.g., displaying a branded login page). Inorder to do so, the SSO microservice 1112 redirects browser 1102 to alogin application service 1114 implemented in JavaScript. Loginapplication service 1114 provides a login page in browser 1102. Browser1102 sends a REST POST to the SSO microservice 1112 including logincredentials. The SSO microservice 1112 generates an access token andsends it to Cloud Gate 1104 in a REST POST. Cloud Gate 1104 sends theauthentication information to Admin SCIM microservice 1116 to validatethe user's password. Admin SCIM microservice 1116 determines successfulauthentication and sends a corresponding message to SSO microservice1112.

In one embodiment, during the login ceremony, the login page does notdisplay a consent page, as “login” operation requires no furtherconsent. Instead, a privacy policy is stated on the login page,informing the user about certain profile attributes being exposed toapplications. During the login ceremony, the SSO microservice 1112respects customer's IDP preferences, and if configured, redirects to theIDP for authentication against the configured IDP.

Upon successful authentication or validation, SSO microservice 1112redirects browser 1102 back to OAuth2 microservice 1110 with the newlycreated/updated SSO host HTTP cookie (e.g., the cookie that is createdin the context of the host indicated by “HOSTURL”) containing the user'sauthentication token. OAuth2 microservice 1110 returns AZ Code (e.g., anOAuth concept) back to browser 1102 and redirects to Cloud Gate 1104.Browser 1102 sends AZ Code to Cloud Gate 1104, and Cloud Gate 1104 sendsa REST POST to OAuth2 microservice 1110 to request the access token andthe identity token. Both tokens are scoped to OAuth microservice 1110(indicated by the audience token claim). Cloud Gate 1104 receives thetokens from OAuth2 microservice 1110.

Cloud Gate 1104 uses the identity token to map the user's authenticatedidentity to its internal account representation, and it may save thismapping in its own HTTP cookie. Cloud Gate 1104 then redirects browser1102 to client 1106. Browser 1102 then reaches client 1106 and receivesa corresponding response from client 1106. From this point on, browser1102 can access the application (i.e., client 1106) seamlessly for aslong as the application's local cookie is valid. Once the local cookiebecomes invalid, the authentication process is repeated.

Cloud Gate 1104 further uses the access token received in a request toobtain “userinfo” from OAuth2 microservice 1110 or the SCIMmicroservice. The access token is sufficient to access the “userinfo”resource for the attributes allowed by the “profile” scope. It is alsosufficient to access “/me” resources via the SCIM microservice. In oneembodiment, by default, the received access token is only good for userprofile attributes that are allowed under the “profile” scope. Access toother profile attributes is authorized based on additional (optional)scopes submitted in the AZ grant login request issued by Cloud Gate1104.

When the user accesses another OAuth2 integrated connecting application,the same process repeats.

In one embodiment, the SSO integration architecture uses a similarOpenID Connect user authentication flow for browser-based user logouts.In one embodiment, a user with an existing application session accessesCloud Gate 1104 to initiate a logout. Alternatively, the user may haveinitiated the logout on the IDCS side. Cloud Gate 1104 terminates theapplication-specific user session, and initiates OAuth2 OpenID Provider(“OP”) logout request against OAuth2 microservice 1110. OAuth2microservice 1110 redirects to SSO microservice 1112 that kills theuser's host SSO cookie. SSO microservice 1112 initiates a set ofredirects (OAuth2 OP and SAML IDP) against known logout endpoints astracked in user's SSO cookie.

In one embodiment, if Cloud Gate 1104 uses SAML protocol to request userauthentication (e.g., login), a similar process starts between the SAMLmicroservice and SSO microservice 1112.

Cloud Cache

One embodiment provides a service/capability referred to as Cloud Cache.Cloud Cache is provided in IDCS to support communication withapplications that are LDAP based (e.g., email servers, calendar servers,some business applications, etc.) since IDCS does not communicateaccording to LDAP while such applications are configured to communicateonly based on LDAP. Typically, cloud directories are exposed via RESTAPIs and do not communicate according to the LDAP protocol. Generally,managing LDAP connections across corporate firewalls requires specialconfigurations that are difficult to set up and manage.

To support LDAP based applications, Cloud Cache translates LDAPcommunications to a protocol suitable for communication with a cloudsystem. Generally, an LDAP based application uses a database via LDAP.An application may be alternatively configured to use a database via adifferent protocol such as SQL. However, LDAP provides a hierarchicalrepresentation of resources in tree structures, while SQL representsdata as tables and fields. Accordingly, LDAP may be more desirable forsearching functionality, while SQL may be more desirable fortransactional functionality.

In one embodiment, services provided by IDCS may be used in an LDAPbased application to, for example, authenticate a user of theapplications (i.e., an identity service) or enforce a security policyfor the application (i.e., a security service). In one embodiment, theinterface with IDCS is through a firewall and based on HTTP (e.g.,REST). Typically, corporate firewalls do not allow access to internalLDAP communication even if the communication implements Secure SocketsLayer (“SSL”), and do not allow a TCP port to be exposed through thefirewall. However, Cloud Cache translates between LDAP and HTTP to allowLDAP based applications reach services provided by IDCS, and thefirewall will be open for HTTP.

Generally, an LDAP directory may be used in a line of business such asmarketing and development, and defines users, groups, works, etc. In oneexample, a marketing and development business may have differenttargeted customers, and for each customer, may have their ownapplications, users, groups, works, etc. Another example of a line ofbusiness that may run an LDAP cache directory is a wireless serviceprovider. In this case, each call made by a user of the wireless serviceprovider authenticates the user's device against the LDAP directory, andsome of the corresponding information in the LDAP directory may besynchronized with a billing system. In these examples, LDAP providesfunctionality to physically segregate content that is being searched atruntime.

In one example, a wireless service provider may handle its own identitymanagement services for their core business (e.g., regular calls), whileusing services provided by IDCS in support of a short term marketingcampaign. In this case, Cloud Cache “flattens” LDAP when it has a singleset of users and a single set of groups that it runs against the cloud.In one embodiment, any number of Cloud Caches may be implemented inIDCS.

Distributed Data Grid

In one embodiment, the cache cluster in IDCS is implemented based on adistributed data grid, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Pub. No.2016/0092540, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated byreference. A distributed data grid is a system in which a collection ofcomputer servers work together in one or more clusters to manageinformation and related operations, such as computations, within adistributed or clustered environment. A distributed data grid can beused to manage application objects and data that are shared across theservers. A distributed data grid provides low response time, highthroughput, predictable scalability, continuous availability, andinformation reliability. In particular examples, distributed data grids,such as, e.g., the Oracle Coherence data grid from Oracle Corp., storeinformation in-memory to achieve higher performance, and employredundancy in keeping copies of that information synchronized acrossmultiple servers, thus ensuring resiliency of the system and continuedavailability of the data in the event of failure of a server.

In one embodiment, IDCS implements a distributed data grid such asCoherence so that every microservice can request access to shared cacheobjects without getting blocked. Coherence is a proprietary Java-basedin-memory data grid, designed to have better reliability, scalability,and performance than traditional relational database management systems.Coherence provides a peer to peer (i.e., with no central manager),in-memory, distributed cache.

FIG. 12 illustrates an example of a distributed data grid 1200 whichstores data and provides data access to clients 1250 and implementsembodiments of the invention. A “data grid cluster”, or “distributeddata grid”, is a system comprising a plurality of computer servers(e.g., 1220 a, 1220 b, 1220 c, and 1220 d) which work together in one ormore clusters (e.g., 1200 a, 1200 b, 1200 c) to store and manageinformation and related operations, such as computations, within adistributed or clustered environment. While distributed data grid 1200is illustrated as comprising four servers 1220 a, 1220 b, 1220 c, 1220d, with five data nodes 1230 a, 1230 b, 1230 c, 1230 d, and 1230 e in acluster 1200 a, the distributed data grid 1200 may comprise any numberof clusters and any number of servers and/or nodes in each cluster. Inan embodiment, distributed data grid 1200 implements the presentinvention.

As illustrated in FIG. 12, a distributed data grid provides data storageand management capabilities by distributing data over a number ofservers (e.g., 1220 a, 1220 b, 1220 c, and 1220 d) working together.Each server of the data grid cluster may be a conventional computersystem such as, for example, a “commodity x86” server hardware platformwith one to two processor sockets and two to four CPU cores perprocessor socket. Each server (e.g., 1220 a, 1220 b, 1220 c, and 1220 d)is configured with one or more CPUs, Network Interface Cards (“NIC”),and memory including, for example, a minimum of 4 GB of RAM up to 64 GBof RAM or more. Server 1220 a is illustrated as having CPU 1222 a,Memory 1224 a, and NIC 1226 a (these elements are also present but notshown in the other Servers 1220 b, 1220 c, 1220 d). Optionally, eachserver may also be provided with flash memory (e.g., SSD 1228 a) toprovide spillover storage capacity. When provided, the SSD capacity ispreferably ten times the size of the RAM. The servers (e.g., 1220 a,1220 b, 1220 c, 1220 d) in a data grid cluster 1200 a are connectedusing high bandwidth NICs (e.g., PCI-X or PCIe) to a high-performancenetwork switch 1220 (for example, gigabit Ethernet or better).

A cluster 1200 a preferably contains a minimum of four physical serversto avoid the possibility of data loss during a failure, but a typicalinstallation has many more servers. Failover and failback are moreefficient the more servers that are present in each cluster and theimpact of a server failure on a cluster is lessened. To minimizecommunication time between servers, each data grid cluster is ideallyconfined to a single switch 1202 which provides single hop communicationbetween servers. A cluster may thus be limited by the number of ports onthe switch 1202. A typical cluster will therefore include between 4 and96 physical servers.

In most Wide Area Network (“WAN”) configurations of a distributed datagrid 1200, each data center in the WAN has independent, butinterconnected, data grid clusters (e.g., 1200 a, 1200 b, and 1200 c). AWAN may, for example, include many more clusters than shown in FIG. 12.Additionally, by using interconnected but independent clusters (e.g.,1200 a, 1200 b, 1200 c) and/or locating interconnected, but independent,clusters in data centers that are remote from one another, thedistributed data grid can secure data and service to clients 1250against simultaneous loss of all servers in one cluster caused by anatural disaster, fire, flooding, extended power loss, and the like.

One or more nodes (e.g., 1230 a, 1230 b, 1230 c, 1230 d and 1230 e)operate on each server (e.g., 1220 a, 1220 b, 1220 c, 1220 d) of acluster 1200 a. In a distributed data grid, the nodes may be, forexample, software applications, virtual machines, or the like, and theservers may comprise an operating system, hypervisor, or the like (notshown) on which the node operates. In an Oracle Coherence data grid,each node is a Java virtual machine (“JVM”). A number of JVMs/nodes maybe provided on each server depending on the CPU processing power andmemory available on the server. JVMs/nodes may be added, started,stopped, and deleted as required by the distributed data grid. JVMs thatrun Oracle Coherence automatically join and cluster when started.JVMs/nodes that join a cluster are called cluster members or clusternodes.

Each client or server includes a bus or other communication mechanismfor communicating information, and a processor coupled to bus forprocessing information. The processor may be any type of general orspecific purpose processor. Each client or server may further include amemory for storing information and instructions to be executed byprocessor. The memory can be comprised of any combination of randomaccess memory (“RAM”), read only memory (“ROM”), static storage such asa magnetic or optical disk, or any other type of computer readablemedia. Each client or server may further include a communication device,such as a network interface card, to provide access to a network.Therefore, a user may interface with each client or server directly, orremotely through a network, or any other method.

Computer readable media may be any available media that can be accessedby processor and includes both volatile and non-volatile media,removable and non-removable media, and communication media.Communication media may include computer readable instructions, datastructures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signalsuch as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes anyinformation delivery media.

The processor may further be coupled via bus to a display, such as aLiquid Crystal Display (“LCD”). A keyboard and a cursor control device,such as a computer mouse, may be further coupled to bus to enable a userto interface with each client or server.

In one embodiment, the memory stores software modules that providefunctionality when executed by the processor. The modules include anoperating system that provides operating system functionality eachclient or server. The modules may further include a cloud identitymanagement module for providing cloud identity management functionality,and all other functionality disclosed herein.

The clients may access a web service such as a cloud service. The webservice may be implemented on a WebLogic Server from Oracle Corp. in oneembodiment. In other embodiments, other implementations of a web servicecan be used. The web service accesses a database which stores clouddata.

REST-Based Declarative Policy Management

Embodiments provide a policy engine that supports declarative policies.The policy engine allows IDCS tenants to use APIs or use anadministrator (“admin”) console UI to configure custom policies thatmeet their organization's requirements, without requiring any customcode, such as custom Java code, to be written. In one embodiment,policies configured via APIs or via the admin console UI are evaluatedat run-time. Embodiments provide corresponding data models, APIinterfaces, policy and rule engines, and rules, as described below.Embodiments are REST-based and allow for data to be retrieveddynamically while a policy is being evaluated. In some embodiments, adeveloper may extend the functions implemented in the policies, forexample, by writing their own functions. In some embodiments, “attributeretrievers” are implemented to enable dynamic retrieval of data based onattributes. In some embodiments, the policy engine is implemented as acommon component of IDCS that is shared by all IDCS microservices. Insome embodiments, the policy engine is implemented as a separate IDCSmicroservice, and SCIM-based REST APIs are provided for policyevaluation and for creating the required policy artifacts for policymanagement.

Generally, IAM functionality may incorporate different types of policiessuch as authentication/login policies, password policies, federationpolicies, multi-factor authentication policies, application policies,provisioning policies, trust policies, etc. Policies broadly fit withineither the access management category (e.g., login policies,multi-factor authentication policies, trust policies, etc.) or theidentity management category (e.g., password policies, IDsynchronization policies, user provisioning policies, etc.). Oneembodiment applies policy-based decisions at various points in theuser/system flows. In one embodiment, policies may be associated with aspecific resource or may be associated with a container (e.g., a tenant)holding a resource. Examples of a resource include an application, anapplication role, an email template, a compute account, a storageaccount, a database, a key vault, a virtual network, a virtual machine,a PaaS service instance, a web application, etc.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of an example data model 1300 implemented bythe embodiments for declarative policy management. As shown in FIG. 13,data model 1300 defines five resource types for implementing declarativepolicies: policy type 1302, policy 1304, rule 1306, condition group1308, and condition 1310. Policy types are global resources that definethe behavior of policies, rules, condition groups, and conditions.Policies, rules, condition groups, and conditions are per-tenantresources configured based on tenant requirements and a correspondingselected policy type. Each policy includes an ordered list of rules andis assigned to a resource 1314 (a container or an application). Eachrule defines an “IF condition or condition group THEN return value(s)”statement. Each rule, when evaluated, returns some result (e.g., returnvalue 1312) if its associated condition or condition group evaluates toTrue. Each condition group includes two or more conditions. Eachcondition defines a relationship between an attribute name, an operator,and an attribute value as “<attribute name> <operator> <attributevalue>”. Each policy and each rule is defined as an instance of acorresponding policy type.

More specifically, a policy type is an artifact that captures thecontract between the policy engine and a caller of the policy engine.One embodiment provides a schema/structure to define such contracts sothat any module can define policy types specific to theirfunctionalities. For example, if the SSO microservice needs to uptakethe policy engine to configure sign-on policies, it can define acorresponding policy type. Similarly, if the application provisioningmicroservice wants to uptake the policy engine to generate attributevalues for an account, it can define a corresponding policy type.Accordingly, any IDCS component/microservice may write a policy typefile as per their desired functionality and then start configuringpolicies/rules/conditions, and no code change is required to uptake thepolicy engine. With reference to FIG. 6, in one embodiment, the policytype is stored in global database 620.

Policy types are global artifacts that specify metadata that determinethe run-time behavior of a given policy that references the policy type.Policy types live in the IDCS global namespace and are defined bydevelopment personnel when a need arises for a new type of policy.Examples of policy types include attribute value generation, usernamegeneration, email generation, sign-on, trust, account correlation, etc.Each policy type may identify allowed input attributes, allowed outputattributes, allowed functions, and whether to stop on a firstdeny/rule/condition match. For example, for a login policy, the allowedinputs may be the user ID, what application the user is trying to loginto, contextual data such as the time of day, what IP address the useris logging in from, what network is the user logging in from, etc. Incontrast, for another policy type such as username generation, client IPaddress may not be needed as an input, but first name, last name, streetaddress, etc., may be needed as inputs. Also, each policy type hasdefined outputs which are what it returns, such as deny access to anapplication.

In one embodiment, the metadata specified by a policy type may include:

-   -   id: globally unique identifier (“GUID”)    -   name: unique name    -   description: policy type description    -   operationsThatTrigger: list of operations a policy of this type        can be evaluated on (e.g., sign-on, application access, etc.)    -   resourceTypesCanBeAssignedTo: list of resource types a policy of        this type can be assigned to (e.g., application, container,        etc.)    -   stopEvaluationOnFirstDenyRuleMatch: if True, stop        policy/rule/condition evaluation when first rule returns        “Deny=True”    -   stopEvaluationOnFirstConditionMatch: if True, stop        policy/rule/condition evaluation when first condition returns        True    -   stopEvaluationOnFirstRuleMatch: if True, stop        policy/rule/condition evaluation when first rule returns        non-null value    -   allowedFunctions: list of functions that can be used in        conditions and return values (e.g., concat, indexof, etc.)    -   allowMultipleReturnAttributes: if True, policy of this type can        return more than one return value    -   allowedTopPathElements: list of attributes, resource types, or        resource IDs that can be passed as input to and/or referenced in        a policy of this type's conditions, such as:        -   name        -   type: e.g., attribute, resource type, resource ID, etc.        -   dataType: (required if type is “attribute”) e.g., string,            Boolean, integer, date, time, etc.        -   resourceType: (required if type is “resourceType”) e.g.,            user, group, etc.        -   attribute RetreiverClassName: (optional if type is            “attribute”) the specified class name needs to implement            policyengine.handler.api.AttributeRetreiver interface which            will be invoked by the policy engine at run-time to retrieve            this attribute's value if the attribute is referenced in at            least one of the policy's conditions    -   allowedReturnPathElements: list of attributes, resource types,        or resource IDs that can be returned as output by rules of a        policy of this type        -   name        -   type: e.g., attribute, resource type, resource ID, etc.        -   dataType: (required if type is “attribute”) e.g., string,            Boolean, integer, date, time, etc.        -   resourceType: (required if type is “resourceType”) e.g.,            user, group, etc.        -   MultiValued: indicates the attribute's plurality        -   PolicyType schema: the following functionality provides an            example of this schema in one embodiment.

{  “attributes”: [   {“name”: “externalId” ...},   {“name”: “name”... },  {“name”: “description”...},   {“name”: “locked”...},   {“name”:“operationsThatTrigger”...},   {“name”:“resourceTypesCanBeAssignedTo”...},   {“name”:“stopEvaluationOnFirstDenyRuleMatch”...},   {“name”:“stopEvaluationOnFirstRuleMatch”...},   {“name”:“stopEvaluationOnFirstConditionMatch”...},   {“name”:“allowedFunctions”...},   {“name”: “autoGenerateOutput”...},   {“name”:“canPolicyBeGroovy”...},   {“name”: “canRuleBeGroovy”...},   {“name”:“canReturnBeGroovy”...},   {“name”: “allowMultipleReturnAttributes”...},  {“name”: “validationHandlerClassName”...},   {“name”:“allowedTopPathElements”...},   {“name”:“allowedReturnPathElements”...},  ],  “description”: “Policy Typeresource. Common configuration for groups of policies.”,  “id”: “urn :ietf: params : scim : schemas : oracle : idcs : PolicyType”,  “meta”:{“location”: “/V2/Schemas/urn : ietf : params : scim : schemas : oracle: idcs : PolicyType”...},  “name”: “PolicyType”,  “schemas”: [...] }

The following functionality provides an example of an attribute valuegeneration policy type in one embodiment.

{ “name” : “Attribute Value Generation Policy Type”, “id”:“AttributeValueGenerationPolicyTypeId”, “description”: “Policy forAttribute Value Generation for Managed Objects”,“idcsPrevented0perations”: [  “delete” ],“stopEvaluationOnFirstRuleMatch”: false,“stopEvaluationOnFirstConditionMatch” : false, “operationsThatTrigger :[“Provision ManagedObject”], “allowedTopPathElements” : [  {“name” :“user” ...},  {“name” : “operation” ...},  {“name” : “userId” ...}],“allowedReturnPathElements” : [  {“name” : “__Any__”...}],“validationHandlerClassName” : “oracle.idaas.managedapp.validation.RuleValidator”, “schemas”: [“urn : ietf : params : scim : schemas :oracle: idcs : PolicyType”], “meta” : {   “resourceType” : “PolicyType”} }

The following functionality provides an example of a sign on policy typein one embodiment.

{ “id” : ”SignOn” , “name” : “SignOn” , “description” : “Policy forAttribute Value Generation for Managed Objects”,“idcsPreventedOperations”: [...], “stopEvaluationOnFirstRuleMatch” :true, “stopEvaluationOnFirstConditionMatch”: false,“stopEvaluationOnFirstDenyRuleMatch”: true, operationsThatTrigger” :[...], “resourceTypesCanBeAssignedTo”: [...], “allowedTopPathElements”:[  {“name” : “target.resource.url”...},  {“name” : “target.action”...}, {“name” : “client.ip”...},  {“name” : “isAuthenticatedUser”...}, {“name” : “subject.authenticatedBy” ...},  {“name” : “session” ...}, {“name” : “user” ...},  {“name” : “userId” ...},  {“name” : “device”...},  {“name” : “userRiskLevel” ...} ], “allowedReturnPathElements”: [ {“name” : “effect”...},  {“name” : “authenticationFactor” ...}, {“name” : “2FAFrequency” ...},  {“name” : “trustedDevice2FAFrequency”...},  {“name” : “reAuthenticate” ...},  {“name” :“allowUserToSkip2FAEnrolment” ...},  {“name” : “returnClaim” ...}, {“name” : “sucessRedirect” ...},  {“name” : “failureRedirect” ...}, {“name” : “annoucementRedirect” ...} ], “validationHandlerClassName” :“oracle.isaas.policy.manager.api. SignOnRuleValidator”,“allowMulitpleReturnAttributes” : true, “schemas”: [...], “meta”:{“resourceType” : “PolicyType” ...} }

Accordingly, policy types have various control switches, includingbehavioral flags and contractual flags, that can be configured tocontrol the behavior of the run-time evaluation of policies of thistype. The behavioral flags include, for example,“stopEvaluationOnFirstDenyRuleMatch” (whether to stop evaluation of apolicy of this type when rule with deny effect in the policy evaluatesto true, and skipping the rest), “stopEvaluationOnFirstRuleMatch”(whether to stop evaluation of a policy of this type when one rule inthe policy evaluates to true, and skipping the rest),“stopEvaluationOnFirstConditionMatch” (whether to stop policy evaluationwhen one condition matches, and skipping the rest). The contractualflags include, for example, “allowedFunctions” (whether a function canbe used in the conditions in rules of this policy type),“allowedTopPathElements” (whether an input is an allowed input to thepolicy of this policy type), “allowedReturnPathElements” (whether anoutput is an allowed output from the policy of this policy type),“operationsThatTrigger” (whether an operation can be used to evaluatepolicies of this type), and “resourceTypesCanBeAssignedTo” (whether aresource type can hold a reference to a policy of this type).

The following functionality provides an example rule for“stopEvaluationOnFirstDenyRuleMatch”, where policy evaluation atrun-time stops and returns when it executes a rule that returns “effect”as DENY:

  “return”:[   {   “name”:“effect”,   “value”:“DENY”   },

In one embodiment, a policy type may further specify whether a rule or apolicy can be configured as a Groovy script and whether a return valuecan be a Groovy expression. In one embodiment, based on currentlyavailable policy types and a desired policy's required operations,inputs, and outputs, a tenant administrator can decide whether a newpolicy type needs to be configured. In one embodiment, a policy type mayfurther include “allowResourcePolicyToOverrideContainerPolicy”. If thisflag is set to True, the policy associated with the correspondingresource (such as an application) will override the policy associatedwith the container in which the resource resides.

In one embodiment, a policy is an artifact that captures a list of rulesof a same policy type in a desired sequence. The policies are evaluatedat run-time, considering the flags in the policy type, to return valuesbased on rule evaluations. Policies and their ordered rules aretenant-specific resources configured per IDCS tenant and by therespective tenant. Policies are defined to be of a specific policy type,can be enabled or disabled, locked or unlocked, and can be assigned toother resources to control which applicable policies are evaluated atrun-time. For example, if a sign-on policy is assigned to anapplication, then at run-time that policy will be evaluated to determinewhat factors are required for authenticating to that application. In oneembodiment, if a policy is not active (enabled), a validation exceptionis thrown. In one embodiment, a policy can be changed or modified onlywhen it is unlocked. In one embodiment, a policy takes a “ValueObject”as input and passes it to each of its assigned rules in the configuredorder. In one embodiment, at least one but possibly all rules areevaluated in the configured order based on policy type metadata. In oneembodiment, evaluation of a policy returns a “ValueObject” that includesthe return values for all rules whose conditions evaluated to True.

In one embodiment, a rule corresponds to a specific policy type(references a specific policy type), and can be assigned to one or morepolicies of the same policy type. In one embodiment, a rule is anartifact that captures a list of condition groups or conditions withoperators such as OR, AND, NOT, etc. It also captures the values to bereturned if conditions within the rule are evaluated positively. In analternative embodiment, a rule may capture and return Groovyexpressions, instead of capturing conditions/condition groups andreturning return values. In one embodiment, if a corresponding policytype allows the rule to be a Groovy script, then the policy engine canrun a Groovy script instead of the rule. In one embodiment, if thepolicy type allows the return value to be a Groovy script, then a rulecan run a groovy script to return a value.

The following provides an example functionality for this type of ruleand its corresponding Groovy scripts/expressions in one embodiment. Thepolicy engine evaluates the Groovy expression stored as a policy if: (1)the corresponding policy type supports Groovy, and (2) the policy has aGroovy script stored in it.

 // the snippet from evaluatePolicy( ) method   // Evaluate input groovyif supported by policy type-Utils.evaluateGroovyExpression(policy.getGroovyExpression( ),inputValues)   if (policyType.isPolicyGroovy( ) &&policy.getPolicyGroovyScript( ) != null) {    ovo =oracle.idaas.common.policyengine.object.vo.Util.evaluateGroovyExpression(policy.getPolicyGroovyScript(), inputVO);   }

Similarly, in case a rule is based on Groovy, the policy engine invokesthe respective expression, as illustrated in the following examplefunctionality.

// the snippet from evaluateRule( ) method  ValueObject ovo = null;  if(ptype.isRuleGroovy( ) && rule.getRuleGroovy( ) != null) {   ovo =oracle.idaas.common.policyengine.object.vo.Util.evaluateGroovyExpression(rule.getRuleGroovy(), inputValues);   return ovo;  }

In both of the above cases, the output (“o/p”) of the Groovy script isthe value object. An example of the Groovy script is as illustrated inthe following functionality.

 //Groovy Policy: vo is input ValueObject passed to policyEngine  ValueObject rvo = new ValueObject( )   def userStatus =vo.get(“user.status”)   def userGroups = vo.get(“user.groups”)   //morelogic with conditional statements   String key = “authenticationFactor”  rvo.put(key,“IDP”); return rvo // this is o/p

In one embodiment, the policy engine allows for using functions whileconfiguring return values of rules. The rules are configured per IDCStenant and by the respective tenant. The rules can be enabled ordisabled, locked or unlocked, and can be assigned to policies of thesame policy type. If a rule is not active (not enabled), then it willnot be evaluated. In one embodiment, a rule can be changed only when itis unlocked. At run-time, a rule is passed a “ValueObject” as input, andthe rule passes it to the assigned condition or condition group forevaluation. If the condition or condition group evaluates to true, thenthe rule returns a “ValueObject” including the configured return values.Otherwise the rule returns null.

In one embodiment, a condition group is an artifact that captures a listof conditions or other condition groups with Boolean operators. That is,each condition group references two or more conditions or conditiongroups joined by Boolean operators (e.g., AND, OR, NOT, etc.), and theBoolean operators are used to model complex and nested Booleanexpressions. At run-time, a condition group is passed a “ValueObject” asinput, and the condition group in turn passes the “ValueObject” to theconditions and/or condition groups it references for evaluation. Eachcondition group may evaluate to True or False.

In one embodiment, a condition refers to an artifact that captures anIF/THEN/ELSE statement (a Boolean expression). In one embodiment, acondition supports various operators such as “equal to”, “not equal to”,“greater than”, “greater than or equal to”, “less than”, “less than orequal to”, etc. In one embodiment, a condition may be configured as“left hand side” operator “right hand side”, or <attributeName><operator> <attributeValue>. In one embodiment, <attributeName> is apath expression based on inputs defined in the policy type. In oneembodiment, <operator> is a SCIM operator. In one embodiment,<attributeValue> is a literal string (e.g., “Human Resources”) or areference to the value of an attribute passed to the rule as inputvalues (e.g., “$(appType[AD].appinstance[CorpAD].email)”). In oneembodiment, conditions implement a set of SCIM filters. In oneembodiment, an attribute name may be the name of one of the attributesor a sub-attribute of one of the attributes specified in the associatedpolicy type's list of “allowedTopPathElements”. At run-time, a conditionis passed a “ValueObject” which will be used to substitute values forattribute references in the attribute name of the condition or in theattribute value of the condition, and then evaluate the Booleanexpression returning True or False. In one embodiment, the policy engineallows for using functions within conditions. For example, in thefollowing functionality, the “concat” function is used within acondition: concat($user.name.firstName), “.”, $(user.name.lastName)).

Table 1 provides an example embodiment of operators that are supportedfor each combination of data types for the <attributeName> and<attributeValue> of a condition. An exception will be thrown if thespecified operator is not supported for the combination of<attributeName> and <attributeValue> data types. In one embodiment, ifthe <attributeName> and <attributeValue> data types specified in a givencondition are different and one is a string, the condition evaluatorwill attempt to convert the string value to the data type of the othervalue's data type, and if successful, then the condition evaluator willapply the operator.

TABLE 1 Example operators that are supported for each combination ofdata types for the <attributeName> and <attributeValue> of a conditionAttribute Name Data Attribute Value Data Type Type String IntegerBoolean Date List String eq, neq, co, eq, neq, gt, eq, neq (if eq, neq,gt, in, sw ge, lt le (if String can ge, lt, le (if inUserGroups, Stringcan be be String can be inContainers, converted to converted toconverted to inAppRoles integer) Boolean) Date) Integer eq, neq, gt, eq,neq, gt, NA NA in ge, lt, le (if ge, lt, le String can be converted tointeger) Boolean eq, neq (if NA eq, neq NA in String can be converted toBoolean) Date eq, neq, gt, NA NA eq, neq, GT, in ge, lt, le (if GTE, LT,String can be LTE converted to Date) List co co co co eq, neq, co, inIn Table 1, “eq” stands for “equal to”, “neq” stands for “not equal to”,“co” stands for “contains”, “sw” stands for “starts with”, “gt” standsfor “greater than”, “ge” stands for “greater than or equal to”, “It”stands for “less than”, and “le” stands for “less than or equal to”.

A return value is a value object that includes the results of a rule'sevaluation if the rule's associated condition or condition groupevaluates to True. A return value's corresponding attribute is a stringexpression defined in the “allowedReturnAttributes” element of thepolicy type referenced by the rule. In one embodiment, a return value ismade of one or more attribute name/value pairs, where:

-   -   Attribute name: one of the attributes defined in the        “allowedReturnPathElements” element of the policy type        referenced by the rule    -   Value is one of the below:        -   A literal string value (e.g.,            “createUserNotificationTemplate”, “1”, “true”, etc.)        -   An expression that resolves to a literal string value which            can include:            -   References to input values or return values from                previous rule evaluations            -   Calls to one or more functions, allowed for a rule of                this policy type, which when evaluated returns a string                value            -   Groovy expressions which are passed input values and                return literal string values

A “ValueObject” is an object that can be used for both input topolicies/rules/conditions/condition groups and for output frompolicies/rules. In one embodiment, a “ValueObject” is configured similarto a Java map and extends the Java map with methods that support pathexpressions. In these embodiments, a “ValueObject” is a collection ofpath expression/value pairs, which facilitates manipulation ofhierarchies of objects/lists/values. A path expression is a string thatis interpreted at run-time by the “ValueObject” to traverse an objecthierarchy and retrieve or assign the value of an attribute. Accordingly,complex object traversals may be specified as a string in embodiments.

A path expression is represented by a system of dots and brackets torepresent objects and attributes in the hierarchy. The path expressionsmay be passed and returned as the key to the “ValueObject” map. Forexample, the path expression “user.name.firstName” may be set as the keyto a “ValueObject”, and the value may be set to “Tom” or a value may beretrieved for the path expression “user.emails[type eq “work”].value”from a “ValueObject”. Accordingly, complex object traversals may bespecified as the key to the map. Examples of path expressions are asfollows:

user.firstname

user.emails[type eq “work”].value

user.container.display

user.org.display

user.phoneNumber[primary eq true].value

targetAppForLogin

subject.clientid

subject.hostip

user.container

user.org.display

clientId

resource.container

hostIp

appRole.availableToUsers

group.members[*].display

Functions are string manipulation methods which can be invoked in anattribute value of a condition or in return values of a rule to computeor transform a condition's attribute value or a rule's return values.When invoked in a return value of a rule, a function computes the valueof an attribute to be returned if the associated condition evaluated toTrue. In one embodiment, for example, a rule writer may use the “concat”function to concatenate “user.name.firstName” together with“user.name.lastName” to return a user's full name. In some embodiments,functions may be nested within other functions as needed. In oneembodiment, each policy type defines the set of functions that can beused in rules of that policy type. In one embodiment, a set of functionsare provided by the policy engine Out-Of-the-Box (“OOB”). Examples ofthe functions that may be used to configure conditions/rules include:

-   -   concat(string1, string2): returns concatenation of string 1 and        string 2    -   substring(string, begin, end): returns sub-strings of string        starting at “begin” to “end”    -   lower(string): returns string with letters changed to lower case    -   upper(string): returns string with letters changed to upper case    -   random Password: generates a random password

The following is an example functionality for adding a sign-on policytype:

PolicyType Json { “id”:“SignOn”,  “name”: “SignOn”,  “description”:“Policy Type for Sign On Policies”,  “stopEvaluationOnFirstRuleMatch”:false,  “stopEvaluationOnFirstConditionMatch”: false, “stopEvaluationOnFirstDenyRuleMatch”: true,  “operationsThatTrigger”: [  “SignOn”,   “App Access”],  “resourceTypesCanBeAssignedTo”: [  “Container”,   “App”],  “allowedTopPathElements”: [   {“name”:“target.resource.url”,    “type”: “attribute”,    “dataType”: “string”},  {“name”: “target.action”,    “type”: “attribute”,    “dataType”:“string”},   {“name”: “ipAddress”,    “type”: “attribute”,   “dataType”: “string”},   {“name”: “subject.isAuthenticatedUser”,   “type”: “attribute”,    “dataType”: “boolean”},   {“name”:“subject.authenticatedBy”,    “type”: “attribute”,    “dataType”:“string”},   {“name”: “subject.riskScore”,     “type”: “attribute”,    “dataType”: “string”,     “attributeRetrieverClassName”:“RiskScoreRetriever”},   {“name”: “user”,    “type”: “resourceType”,   “resourceType”: “User”},   {“name”: “userId”,    “type”:“resourceId”,    “resourceType”: “User”},   {“name”: “device”,   “type”: “resourceType”,    “resourceType”: “Device“}], “allowedReturnPathElements”: [   {“name”: “effect”,    “type”:“attribute”,    “dataType”: “string”},   {“name”:“authenticationFactor”,    “type”: “attribute”,    “dataType”:“string”},   {“name”: “returnClaim”,    “type”: “attribute”,   “dataType”: “string”},   {“name”: “successRedirect”,    “type”:“attribute”,    “dataType”: “string”},   {“name”: “failureRedirect”,   “type”: “attribute”,    “dataType”: “string”},   {“name”:“annoucementRedirect”,    “type”: “attribute”,    “dataType”:“string“}],  “allowMultipleReturnAttributes”: true,  “schemas”:[“urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:oracle:idcs:PolicyType”],  “meta”:{“resourceType”: “PolicyType”}}

The following functionalities provide examples of creatingauthentication policies and associated artifacts:

subject.isAuthenticated eq true and target.action eq “login” andsubject.user.riskScore gt 100

Example 1

POST /Conditions {“name”: “c1”, “attributeName”:“subject.isAuthenticated”, “operator”: “eq”,“attributeValue”: true}POST /Conditions {“name”: “c2”, “attributeName”: “target.action”,“operator”: “eq”, “attributeValue”:

“SignOn”}

POST /Conditions {“name”: “c3”, “attributeName”: “$(subject.riskScore”,“operator”: “gt”, “attributeValue”:100}POST /ConditionGroups {“name”: “cg1”, “conditions”: [{“value”: “<c1id>”, “type”: “Condition”}, {“value”:“<c2 id>”, “type”: “Condition”}], {“value”: “<c3 id>”, “type”:“Condition”}], “operator”: “and”}POST /Rules {“name”: “Risk Score Too High”, “policyType”: [“value”:“<Signon PolicyType id>”],“conditions”: [{“value”: “<c3 id>”, “type”: “ConditionGroup”}, “return”:[{“name”: “effect”, “value”: “DENY”}]}POST /Policies {“name”: “Risk Score Too High”, “policyType”: [“value”:“<Signon PolicyType id>”],“rules”: [{“value”: “<Risk Score Too High Rule id>”, “sequence”: 1}]}target.action eq “login” and (subject.name inUserGroups “finance,accounting, sales” or subject.nameinContainers “Internal, Sales”) and ipAddress inIpMask “10.10.*.*”

Example 2

POST /Conditions {“name”: “c1”, “attributeName”: “target.action”,“operator”: “eq”, “attributeValue”:

“SignOn”}

POST /Conditions {“name”: “c2”, “attributeName”: “subject.name”,“operator”: “inUserGroups”,“attributeValue”: [“finance”,“accounting”,“sales”]}POST /Conditions {“name”: “c3”, “attributeName”: “subject.name”,“operaton”: “inContainers”,“attributeValue”: [“Internal”,“Sales”]}POST /Conditions {“name”: “c4”, “attributeName”: “ipAddress”,“operaton”: “inIpMask”, “attributeValue”:“10.10.*.*”}POST /ConditionGroups {“name”: “cg1”, “conditions”: [{“value”: “<c2id>”, “type”: “Condition”}, {“value”:“<c3 id>”, “type”: “Condition”}], “operator”: “or”}POST /ConditionGroups {“name”: “cg2”, “conditions”: [{“value”: “<c1id>”, “type”: “Condition”}, {“value”:“<cg1 id>”, “type”: “ConditionGroup”}, {“value”: “<c4 id>”, “type”:“Condition”}], “operator”: “and”}POST /Rules {“name”: “Risky Ip”, “policyType”: [“value”: “<SignonPolicyType id>”],“conditionOrConditionGroup”: [{“value”: “<cg2 id>”, “type”:“ConditionGroup”}, “return”: [{“name”: “effect”,“value”: “ALLOW”}, {“name”: “authenticationFactor”, “value”:“2FA.ALWAYS”}]}POST /Policies {“name”: “Risky Ip”, “policyType”: [“value”: “<SignonPolicyType id>”], “rules”: [(“value”:“<Risky Ip Rule id>”, “sequence”: 1}]}

In one embodiment, at the time of evaluation of a policy, the policyengine evaluates each rule of the policy against the attribute/valuepairs passed to it or derived at run-time by the policy engine. When thefirst rule's condition evaluates to true, the configured return valuesare returned to the caller. If the policy type referenced by the policyspecifies to stop evaluation on the first rule match, the evaluation iscomplete. However, if the policy type referenced by the policy specifiesto not stop evaluation on the first rule match (in other words, processall rules assigned to the policy), the remaining rules are processed inthe order configured in the policy. For each rule whose conditionevaluates to True, the configured return values are added to thecumulative output, indexed by rule name, before being returned to thecaller. In addition, return values of prior rules are added as “_returnValues” in the input values passed to each subsequent rule, so they areavailable to the subsequent rules for use in their conditions or returnvalues.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example run-time flow diagram 1400 of policyevaluation by a declarative policy engine according to an embodiment. Inorder to execute “ValueObject PolicyManager.evaluate(Policy,ValueObject)” identifying a policy 1402 to be evaluated with a“ValueObject”, the policy engine passes the “ValueObject” to policy1402. Based on the corresponding ordered set of rules 1404, policy 1402passes the “ValueObject” to the rules according to the order. Each ruledetermines if its corresponding condition is true, and then returns the“ValueObject” to policy 1402. The policy engine determines if thereturned “ValueObject” is non-null AND if “Stop on 1^(st) Rule Match” isTrue. If both of these requirements are satisfied, the policy enginereturns the “ValueObject” to policy 1402. Otherwise, the policy enginepasses the returned “ValueObject” to the next rule according to theconfigured order.

In one embodiment, the policy engine exposes public policy evaluationmethods with the following parameters:

-   -   policyId: ID of policy to be evaluated    -   policyType: name of policy type to evaluate (e.g., “SignOn”)    -   resourceType: resource type of specified resource ID if        specified    -   resourceId: resource ID whose assigned policy of the specified        policy type should be evaluated    -   inputVO: input path expression/value pairs constrained by        allowed input path expressions specified in specified policy        type

The following is an example functionality for implementing the policyengine “evaluate( )” method:

public List<ValueObject> evaluate (String policyType,  StringresourceType,  String resourceId,  ValueObject inputVO) throwsResourceException, ValidationFailedException; public ValueObjectevaluatePolicy (String policyId, ValueObject inputVO) throwsResourceException, ValidationFailedException {

In one embodiment, if the policy engine “evaluate( )” method is invokedby a client, the following functionality is used to determine theapplicable policies to evaluate:

if resourceType & resourceId is null  evaluate Policy of specifiedPolicyType assigned to Top Container else  get specifiedresourceType/resourceId's “assignedPolicies” & “container” attributes if referenced “container” has Policy of specified PolicyType assigned &container's allowResourcePolicyToOverrideContainerPolicy is false  evaluate container Policy of specified Policy Type  else   ifresourceId has “assignedPolicies” and one of the assign policies is ofspecified PolicyType    evaluate resourceId's Policy   else    evaluate“Top” container Policy of specified PolicyType

In one embodiment, the following functionality is used to invoke thepolicy engine “evaluate” method:

ValueObject inputValueObject = new ValueObject( );inputValueObject.put(“target.action”, “SignOn”);inputValueObject.put(“ipAddress”, “10.10.121.36”);inputValueObject.put(“subject.name”, IdcsSubject.getUserPrincipal().getDisplayName( )); inputValueObject.put(“subject.isAuthenticated”,true);  try {    PolicyEngine policyEngine =   IDCSExecutionContext.get( ).getServiceLocator().getService(PolicyEngine.class);    ValueObject outputValueObject =policyEngine.evaluate(“SignOn”, “App”, “<appid>”,    inputValueObject); } catch (oracle.idaas.client.exception.ResourceException e) {   thrownew ProcessingFailedException(e);

In one embodiment, new policy types (i.e., metadata) may be added toleverage the policy engine and control behavior of policy evaluation. Inone embodiment, new policy types may be added by IDCS tenants that needdynamic policy evaluation functionality at run-time.

The following provides an example “Partner” login policy with loginconstraint rules, conditions, and return values, implemented by thedeclarative policy engine in one embodiment:

“Off Site Partner—After Hours” login rule

-   -   Condition: user.org eq “Partner” and ipWithin($(user.hostIp),        “192.3.*.*”, “192.6.*.*”) and currentTimeAfter(17:00) and        currentTimeBefore(08:00)    -   ReturnValue: “After Hours Off Site Partner” LoginModuleGroup        configured with:        -   scheme:userid/pwd, flag:required        -   scheme:SMS, assuranceLevel:required        -   sessionTimeout: 10 min

“Off Site Partner—Regular Hours” login rule

-   -   Condition: user.org eq “Partner” and ipWithin($(user.hostIp),        “192.3.*.*”, “192.6.*.*”)    -   Return Value: “Off Site Partner” LoginModuleGroup configured        with:        -   scheme:userid/pwd, flag:required        -   scheme:SMS, flag:required        -   sessionTimeout: 30 min

“On Site Partner” login rule

-   -   Condition: user.org eq “Partner” and ipWithin($(user.hostIp),        “192.7.*.*”, “192.10.*.*”)    -   Return Value: “On Site Partner” LoginModuleGroup configured        with:        -   scheme:userid/pwd, assuranceLevel:required        -   sessionTimeout: 1 hour

The following provides an example “Notification” policy, rules,conditions, and return values implemented by the declarative policyengine in one embodiment:

Notify policy type

-   -   Allowed inputs        -   user.*        -   operation    -   Allowed outputs        -   emailTemplate        -   sendTo    -   Allowed functions    -   Stop on 1^(st) Rule Match        -   True

“Notify Off Site Partner” policy

-   -   “Notify Off Site Partner—After Hours” rule        -   Condition: operation eq “resetPassword” and user.type eq            “Full-Time” and ipWithin($(user.hostIp), “192.3”, “192.6”)            and currentTimeAfter(17:00) and currentTimeBefore(08:00)        -   Return Value            -   emailTemplate=“Partner Reset Password”,            -   sendTo=$(user.email[recovery eq true].value)

The following provides an example “User Member Of” policy, rules,conditions, and return values implemented by the declarative policyengine in one embodiment:

“User Member Of” policy type

-   -   Allowed inputs        -   user.*    -   Allowed outputs        -   True/False    -   Allowed functions    -   Stop on 1^(st) Rule Match        -   True

“Partner” “User Member Of” policy with rules

-   -   “Partner” rule        -   Condition: user.groups co “Partner”            -   ReturnValue                -   True

The following provides an example “Group Members” policy, rules,conditions, and return values implemented by the declarative policyengine in one embodiment:

“Group Members” policy type

-   -   Allowed inputs        -   user.*    -   Allowed outputs        -   userSearchFilter    -   Allowed functions    -   Stop on 1^(st) Rule Match        -   True

“Partner” “Group Members” policy with rules

-   -   “Partner” rule        -   Condition: True            -   ReturnValue                -   user.groups co “Partner”

The following provide additional example policy types that can beimplemented by the declarative policy engine in embodiments:

Applicable Login/Authentication Policy

Applicable Authorization Policy

Applicable Password Policy

Applicable Key Store policy

Applicable Trust policy

Applicable Adaptive/Risk policy

Username Generation policy

Email Generation policy

Account Synchronization Correlation

Challenge Questions

Attribute Value Generation

User Manager

User Container

Extensible Policy Engine

One embodiment allows consumers of the policy engine to extend thepolicy engine capabilities by including additional functions and/orextending the OOB functions used in configuring conditions/rules. In oneembodiment, a consumer of the policy engine (e.g., an IDCS microservice)may configure a condition/rule by writing their own functions and/or bywriting attribute retrievers, instead of only relying on functionsprovided by the policy engine OOB. In one embodiment, a tenantadministrator may use the functions for configuring policy expressions(expressions defining a policy rule or condition), and the functions aredynamically invoked from within the policy engine at run-timeevaluation. More specifically, at design time, the policy engine storespolicy expressions that include functions along with arguments to thefunctions. In one embodiment, at design time, policy engine allows tostore rules with return values containing functions. For example, in oneembodiment, the rule associated to attribute value generation policy forGoogle uses a function to generate a password as shown in the followingfunctionality.

{ “description”: “RuleTemplate for Google”, “conditionGroup” : {  “value”: “AVGProvisionManagedObject”,   “type” : “ConditionalTemplate”}, “name”: “RuleTemplate for Google”, “policyType”: {  “value”:“AttributeValueGenerationPolicyTypeId” }, “return”: [  {   “value”:“$(user.name.givenName)”,   “name”: “givenName”  },  {   “value”:“$(user.name.familyName)”,   “name”: “familyName”  }  {   “name”:“password”,   “value”: “#random_password($user.id) )”  },  {   “name”:“name”,   “value”: “$(user.emails[primary=true] .value)”  },  {  “name”: “primaryEmail”,   “value”: “$(user.emails[primary=true].value)”  } ] , “schemas” : [  “urn : ietf : params : scim : schemas :oracle: idcs : RuleTemplate” ] }

Then, at run-time, the policy engine parses the policy expressions,invokes the functions, evaluates the functions, and interprets theoutput of the functions in order to evaluate the correspondingcondition. In one embodiment, for example, a function may return avalue, e.g., a Boolean or an integer, and the value is interpreted inthe context of the corresponding condition.

In one embodiment, when data to be fetched for policy evaluation dependson data evaluated by a prior rule or condition, or when data to befetched for policy evaluation is not a part of input data fed to policyevaluation, then such data may be retrieved dynamically by an attributeretriever during run-time while policy evaluation is in progress. In oneembodiment, the difference between a function and an attribute retrieveris that functions are explicitly mentioned while defining/configuringconditions/return values, but attribute retrievers are not implementedby a condition or return value. Instead, attribute retrievers aredefined in the policy type. Therefore, attribute retrievers are designedwhile configuring the contract of a policy type. In one embodiment,functions may be provided by the policy engine or may be written by aconsumer and used by the consumer, while attribute retrievers are alwayswritten by consumers. In one embodiment, there is no grammar requiredfor the attribute retriever since it is not a part of a condition or arule.

In one embodiment, in order to implement an attribute retriever, thepolicy type includes:

allowedTopPathElement.attributeRetreiverClassName

In this embodiment, a class name may be specified to implement:

common.policyengine.handlerapi.AttributeRetreiver

The class has the following method:

Object retreiveAttributeValue (ValueObject inputValues, PolicyTypeptype, String attributeName)

The method is called by the policy engine at run-time if necessary, forexample, if a condition has a reference to an attribute to which“attributeRetreiverClassName” is defined. The following is an examplefunctionality for such a condition and the attribute “userRiskLevel” towhich “attributeRetrieverClassName” is defined in the policy type.

{  “id”: “SignOn”,  “name”: “SignOn”,  “description”: “Policy forAttribute Value Generation for Managed Objects”, “idcsPreventedOperations” : [...],  “stopEvaluationOnFirstRuleMatch”:true,  “stopEvaluationOnFirstConditionMatch”: false, “stopEvaluationOnFirstDenyRuleMatch”: true,  “operationsThatTrigger” :[...],  “resourceTypesCanBeAssignedTo” : [...], “allowedTopPathElements” : [   {“name”: “target.resource.url” ...},  {“name”: “target.action”...},   {“name”: “client.ip”...},   {“name”:“isAuthenticatedUser” ...},   {“name”: “subject.authenticatedBy” ...},  {“name”: “session”...},   {“name”: “user” ...},   {“name”: “userId”...},   {    “name”: “userRiskLevel”,    “type” : “attribute”,   “datatype” : “integer”,    “attributeRetrieverClassName” :“oracle.idaas.adaptive.policy.AdaptiveAttributeRetriever”   } ],“allowedReturnPathElements”: [...], “validationHandlerClassName” :“oracle.idaas.policy.manager.api.SignOnRuleValidator”,“allowMultipleReturnAttributes”: true, “schemas” : [...], “meta”:{“resourceType” : “PolicyType”...} }

The following is an example functionality for a rule that implements anattribute retriever, where the attribute retriever is used within acondition. When such a condition is written, the policy engineautomatically understands that the value of “userRiskLevel” needs to befetched at run-time and it needs to invoke the attribute retriever to dothis. If there is a variable to which the attribute retriever is used ina condition and/or a return value, then the attribute retriever isinvoked.

{  “schemas”: [...],  “Operations”: [   {“method”: “POST”...},  {“method”: “Post”...},   {    “method”: “POST”,    “path”:“/Conditions”,    “bulkId” : “userRiskLevel”,    “data”: {     “schemas”:      “urn.ietf : params : scim : schemas : oracle: idcs : Condition”    ],     “name”: “userRiskLevel”,     “attributeName”:“userRiskLevel”,     “evaluateConditionIf”: “#adaptive( )”,    “operator”: “gt”,     “attributeValue” : “2”   }  },  {“method”:“POST” ...},  {“method”: “POST” ...},  {“method”: “POST” ...}, {“method”: “PATCH” ...}  ] }

In one embodiment, policies are managed via REST (SCIM-based) APIs, andtherefore the list of applicable policies are provided at run-time basedon the module/component that is invoking the policy engine. However,some IDCS components may want to leverage the embodiments for policymanagement and for computing applicable policies without using artifactssuch as rules, conditions, condition groups, etc. In this case,embodiments allow such IDCS modules/components to have their own policy(e.g., XML-based, JSON-based, or based on any artifact), and allow forextending the policy schema and persisting the component/module'spolicy. Embodiments also allow such modules/components to extend theexisting policy engine and write their own policy evaluation logic.Then, the OOB policy engine framework determines the applicable policyand hands over such policies to the component that wants to evaluatethem. The following is example functionality that is JSON based and willbe evaluated by an overloaded (extended) TrustPolicyEngine:

{  “name”:“IaasPolicy5”,  “description”:“IaasPolicy5”,  “policyType”: {  “value”: “TrustPolicy”  }, “urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:oracle:idcs:extension:TrustPolicy:Policy”: {   “version”: “1.0”,   “effect”: “ALLOW”,  “permissions”:[“urn:opc:resource:consumer::all”],  “clients”:[{“value” : “ALL“}],   “users”:[“NoUserRule( )”],  “resources”:[“ResourceAccountRule( )”]  },  “schemas”: [  “urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:oracle:idcs:Policy”  ] }

FIG. 15 illustrates a block diagram 1500 of relationships between apolicy engine 1502, an abstract policy engine 1504, a default policyengine 1506, and a trust policy engine 1508 according to an embodiment.The embodiment polymorphically extends policy engine 1502 to re-use theapplicability logic of a policy. FIG. 15 indicates how at run-time thebehavior of policy engine 1502 is changed using policy morphism. Theembodiment hides the implementation of the policy applicability from theactual policy evaluation logic. A caller always invokes“policyEngine.evaluate(..)”, which in turn invokes a base implementationof (1) “getApplicablePolicies” and (2) “evaluateListOf Policies”, whichis done in “AbstractPolicyEngine” 1504. Based on the type of theinstance invoking “policyEngine.evaluateQ”, different forms of“evaluatePolicy( )” implementation are invoked dynamically, for example,as illustrated in the following functionality.

Caller

1) PolicyEnginepolicyEngine=serviceLocator.getService(DefaultPolicyEngine.class);

PolicyEngine.evaluate( )//default implementation

2) PolicyEnginetrustPolicyEngine=serviceLocator.getService(TrustPolicyEngine.class);

TrustPolicyEngine.evaluate( )->extensible implementation

In one embodiment, policy engine 1502 may be implemented according tothe below functionality:

public interface PolicyEngine {   List<ValueObject> evaluate (StringpolicyAssignmentAttribute,      String resourceType,      StringresourceID,      ValueObject inputV0):  ValueObject evaluatePolicy(String policyId, ValueObject inputV0);  List<String>getApplicablePolicies(String policyAssignmentAttribute,    StringresourceType,    String resourceId) throws ResourceException; List<ValueObject> evaluateListOfPolicies(List<String> policyIdList,    ValueObject inputV0) throws Resource Exception; }

In one embodiment, abstract policy engine 1504 may be implementedaccording to the below functionality:

public AbstractPolicyEngine(ServiceLocator serviceLocator) {. . . } @{.. .} public final List<ValueObject> evaluate(StringpolicyAssignmentAttribute, String resourceType, String resourceId,ValueObject inputV0) @Override public ValueObject evaluatePolicy(StringpolicyId, ValueObject inputValues) { return null; } @Override publicList<String> getApplicablePolicies(String policyAssignmentAttribute, String resourceType,  String resourceID) throws ResourceException {. .. } public List<ValueObject> evaluateListOfPolicies(List<String>applicablePolicies,  ValueObject inputV0) throws ResourceException {. ..}

In one embodiment, default policy engine 1506 extends abstract policyengine 1504 and may be implemented according to the below functionality:

@Inject public DefaultPolicyEngine(ServiceLocator serviceLocator,MetricRegistry metricRegistry) {. . . }/PMD.AvoidCatchingGenericException/ public ValueObject evaluatePolicy(String policyID, ValueObject inputV0) {. . . }

In one embodiment, trust policy engine 1508 extends abstract policyengine 1504 and may be implemented according to the below functionality:

public List<ValueObject> evaluateListOfPolicies(

FIGS. 16A and 16B are flow diagrams 1600A and 1600B, respectively, offunctionality for policy management in a multi-tenant cloud-based IAMsystem in accordance with an embodiment. In one embodiment, thefunctionality of the flow diagrams of FIGS. 16A and 16B is implementedby software stored in memory or other computer readable or tangiblemedium, and executed by a processor. In other embodiments, thefunctionality may be performed by hardware (e.g., through the use of anapplication specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”), a programmable gatearray (“PGA”), a field programmable gate array (“FPGA”), etc.), or anycombination of hardware and software.

Referring now to FIG. 16A, flow diagram 1600A illustrates a method fordeclarative policy management in a multi-tenant cloud-based IAM systemaccording to an embodiment.

At 1602 at least one API request is received by a policy engine of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system from a tenant of the multi-tenantcloud-based IAM system, wherein the API request is a REST requestconfigured according to SCIM. For example, in one embodiment, the policyengine is a common module available for uptake by components of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system such as any of the IDCSmicroservices 614 providing cloud-based IAM services to tenants of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system as described herein with referenceto FIG. 6. In one embodiment, a microservice is a self-contained modulethat can communicate with other modules/microservices, and eachmicroservice has an unnamed universal port that can be contacted byothers. In one embodiment, the microservice is a runtimecomponent/process. In one embodiment, the microservice is stateless andretrieves data from a database to perform an identity managementservice. In one embodiment, the database and the microservice areconfigured to scale independently of one another. In one embodiment, thedatabase includes a distributed data grid.

At 1604 a declarative policy is configured for the tenant of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system based on the at least one APIrequest, and at 1606 the declarative policy is enforced in an IAMservice performed for the tenant of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAMsystem. In one embodiment, with reference to FIG. 6A, the configureddeclarative policy is stored at resources store 708 b. For example, thedeclarative policy may be a login/authentication policy (enforced forauthenticating a user), an authorization policy (enforced for givingaccess to a user), a notification policy (enforced for notifying auser), a password policy (enforced for validating a password), anadaptive/risk policy (enforced for a user's risk score), a usernamegeneration policy (enforced for generating a user name), an emailgeneration policy (enforced for generating an email address), an accountsynchronization correlation policy (enforced for correlating/associatingan external account with an identity), a challenge question policy(enforced for providing a challenge question), an attribute valuegeneration policy (enforced for generating an attribute value), a usermanager policy (enforced for determining a user's manager based on otheruser attributes like division, department, etc.), a user containerpolicy (enforced for all resources that live in the container unless apolicy of the same type is directly assigned to a resource in thatcontainer), etc.

In one embodiment, the policy engine exposes SCIM-based REST APIs forcreating policy artifacts associated with the declarative policy. In oneembodiment, the policy engine defines a data model comprising resourcetypes corresponding to the policy artifacts, as described herein withreference to data model 1300 in FIG. 13. In one embodiment, the policyartifacts include the declarative policy, a policy type, rules,condition groups, and conditions. In one embodiment, the policy typedefines a contract between the policy engine and a component of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system that uptakes the policy engine. Inone embodiment, the policy type is defined by the component of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system that uptakes the policy engine byconfiguring one or more control switches that control the run-timeevaluation behavior of the declarative policy.

In one embodiment, each condition comprises an IF/THEN/ELSE statement.In one embodiment, each condition group comprises a Boolean combinationof one or more conditions using OR/AND/NOT operators (e.g.,((NOT<condition1>) OR <condition2>) AND <condition3>). In oneembodiment, each rule comprises a Boolean combination of one or morecondition groups or conditions using OR/AND/NOT operators and defines avalue to be returned if the Boolean combination is evaluated positively.

In one embodiment, the declarative policy includes the rules configuredin an ordered sequence. In one embodiment, the declarative policy isevaluated at run-time according to flags configured in the policy typeto return values based on evaluation of the rules according to theordered sequence.

In one embodiment, the declarative policy is associated with a resourceor a container of the tenant of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system.In one embodiment, the declarative policy is customized for the tenantof the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system by a corresponding tenantadministrator or a security administrator. In one embodiment, thecorresponding tenant administrator or the security administratorconfigures the declarative policy using an administration console UI1700 as illustrated in FIG. 17. In one embodiment, the correspondingtenant administrator or the security administrator configures thedeclarative policy using JSON.

In one embodiment, the corresponding tenant administrator or thesecurity administrator configures the declarative policy according tobusiness requirements of the tenant.

In one embodiment, the policy engine exposes SCIM-based REST APIs forevaluating the declarative policy. In this embodiment, the policy engineis implemented as a microservice

Referring now to FIG. 16B, flow diagram 1600B illustrates a method forpolicy evaluation in a multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system according toan embodiment.

At 1608 a request is received for an IAM service for a tenant of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system. For example, in one embodiment, therequest is received by a policy engine that is a common module availablefor uptake by components of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system suchas any of the IDCS microservices 614 providing cloud-based IAM servicesto tenants of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system as describedherein with reference to FIG. 6. In one embodiment, a microservice is aself-contained module that can communicate with othermodules/microservices, and each microservice has an unnamed universalport that can be contacted by others. In one embodiment, themicroservice is a runtime component/process. In one embodiment, themicroservice is stateless and retrieves data from a database to performan identity management service. In one embodiment, the database and themicroservice are configured to scale independently of one another. Inone embodiment, the database includes a distributed data grid.

At 1610 an applicable policy associated with the IAM service isdetermined. For example, the applicable policy may be alogin/authentication policy (enforced for authenticating a user), anauthorization policy (enforced for giving access to a user), anotification policy (enforced for notifying a user), a password policy(enforced for validating a password), an adaptive/risk policy (enforcedfor a user's risk score), a username generation policy (enforced forgenerating a user name), an email generation policy (enforced forgenerating an email address), an account synchronization correlationpolicy (enforced for correlating/associating an external account with anidentity), a challenge question policy (enforced for providing achallenge question), an attribute value generation policy (enforced forgenerating an attribute value), a user manager policy (enforced fordetermining a user's manager based on other user attributes likedivision, department, etc.), a user container policy (enforced for allresources that live in the container unless a policy of the same type isdirectly assigned to a resource in that container), etc.

In one embodiment, the applicable policy is a declarative policyconfigured by a policy engine that is a common module available foruptake by microservices providing cloud-based IAM services to tenants ofthe multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system. In one embodiment, thedeclarative policy is configured by the policy engine using at least oneREST API request configured according to SCIM.

In one embodiment, the policy engine exposes SCIM-based REST APIs forcreating policy artifacts associated with the declarative policy. In oneembodiment, the policy engine defines a data model comprising resourcetypes corresponding to the policy artifacts, as described herein withreference to data model 1300 in FIG. 13. In one embodiment, the policyartifacts include the declarative policy, a policy type, rules,condition groups, and conditions. In one embodiment, the policy typedefines a contract between the policy engine and a component of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system that uptakes the policy engine. Inone embodiment, the policy type is defined by the component of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system that uptakes the policy engine byconfiguring one or more control switches that control the run-timeevaluation behavior of the declarative policy.

In one embodiment, each condition comprises an IF/THEN/ELSE statement.In one embodiment, each condition group comprises a Boolean combinationof one or more conditions using OR/AND/NOT operators (e.g.,((NOT<condition1>) OR <condition2>) AND <condition3>). In oneembodiment, each rule comprises a Boolean combination of one or morecondition groups or conditions using OR/AND/NOT operators and defines avalue to be returned if the Boolean combination is evaluated positively.In one embodiment, the declarative policy includes the rules configuredin an ordered sequence. In one embodiment, the declarative policy isevaluated at run-time according to flags configured in the policy typeto return values based on evaluation of the rules according to theordered sequence.

In one embodiment, the declarative policy is associated with a resourceor a container of the tenant of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system.In one embodiment, the declarative policy is customized for the tenantof the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system by a corresponding tenantadministrator or a security administrator. In one embodiment, thecorresponding tenant administrator or the security administratorconfigures the declarative policy using an administration console UI1700 as illustrated in FIG. 17. In one embodiment, the correspondingtenant administrator or the security administrator configures thedeclarative policy using JSON. In one embodiment, the correspondingtenant administrator or the security administrator configures thedeclarative policy according to business requirements of the tenant. Inone embodiment, the policy engine exposes SCIM-based REST APIs forevaluating the declarative policy. In this embodiment, the policy engineis implemented as a microservice.

At 1612 a policy expression of the applicable policy is determined,where the policy expression includes a reference to an attribute value,and the reference either includes a function or includes an API of anattribute retriever class. In one embodiment, the policy expression isused in defining a rule or condition of the declarative policy. In oneembodiment, at least one rule or condition of the declarative policyrequires the attribute value as an input. In one embodiment, the inputincludes dynamic run-time data that depends on data evaluated by a priorrule or condition of the declarative policy. In one embodiment, theinput includes dynamic run-time data that is not part of input data fedto the policy engine by the request for the IAM service.

At 1614 the attribute value is obtained by invoking the function or byinvoking the API of the attribute retriever class. In one embodiment,the function is used by the policy engine in configuring a condition orreturn value of the declarative policy. In this embodiment, thereference to the attribute value comprises the function, and theobtaining of the attribute value includes parsing the policy expressioninto the function at run-time, determining input arguments to thefunction based on the request for the IAM service, and invoking theparsed function with the input arguments. In one embodiment, thefunction is provided by an administrator of the tenant of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system.

In one embodiment, the policy engine configures an element in the policytype of the declarative policy, and the element identifies the attributeretriever class as an allowed input reference. In this embodiment, thereference to the attribute value comprises the API of the attributeretriever class, and the policy engine invokes the API of the attributeretriever class at run-time to retrieve the attribute value if thecorresponding attribute is referenced in at least one condition or ruleof the declarative policy. In one embodiment, the attribute retrieverclass is provided by an administrator of the tenant of the multi-tenantcloud-based IAM system.

At 1616 the applicable policy is evaluated at run-time using at leastthe obtained attribute value. In one embodiment, for example theapplicable policy may be evaluated as described herein with reference toFIG. 14. At 1618 the IAM service is performed based on the result of theevaluating of the policy. For example, the IAM service may correspond touser authentication, and the applicable policy may be alogin/authentication policy that is evaluated for authenticating a user.In another example, the IAM service may correspond to user notification,and the applicable policy may be a notification policy which isevaluated for notifying a user.

As disclosed, embodiments implement a policy engine as a software modulethat provides a declarative way to define policies using REST APIs andJSON. The policy engine enables customers to define and configurevarious policies, rules, and conditions that get evaluated atappropriate points during run-time to make dynamic decisions, forexample, a decision on what authentication mechanism needs to be used,what a password should be for a user, etc. Embodiments deliver a genericmeta-data driven policy/rule evaluation engine that is stateless,lightweight, performant, re-entrant, and invoke-able by otherapplications.

Several embodiments are specifically illustrated and/or describedherein. However, it will be appreciated that modifications andvariations of the disclosed embodiments are covered by the aboveteachings and within the purview of the appended claims withoutdeparting from the spirit and intended scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for policy evaluation in a multi-tenantcloud-based identity and access management (IAM) system, the methodcomprising: receiving a request for an IAM service for a tenant of themulti-tenant cloud-based IAM system; determining an applicable policyassociated with the IAM service; determining a policy expression of theapplicable policy, wherein the policy expression comprises a referenceto an attribute value, wherein the reference either comprises a functionor comprises an application programming interface (API) of an attributeretriever class; obtaining the attribute value by invoking the functionor by invoking the API of the attribute retriever class; evaluating theapplicable policy at run-time using at least the obtained attributevalue; and performing the IAM service based on the result of theevaluating of the policy.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein theapplicable policy is a declarative policy configured by a policy enginethat is a common module available for uptake by microservices providingcloud-based IAM services to tenants of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAMsystem, wherein the declarative policy is configured by the policyengine using at least one Representational State Transfer (REST) APIrequest configured according to System for Cross-domain IdentityManagement (SCIM).
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the policy enginedefines a data model comprising resource types corresponding to policyartifacts associated with the declarative policy, wherein the policyartifacts comprise: the declarative policy; a policy type; rules;condition groups; and conditions.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein thepolicy type defines a contract between the policy engine and a componentof the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system that uptakes the policyengine and performs the IAM service, wherein the policy type is definedby the component of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system that uptakesthe policy engine by configuring one or more control switches thatcontrol the run-time evaluation behavior of the declarative policy. 5.The method of claim 4, wherein each of the conditions comprises anIF/THEN/ELSE statement, wherein each of the condition groups comprises aBoolean combination of one or more conditions using OR/AND/NOToperators, wherein each of the rules comprises a Boolean combination ofone or more condition groups or conditions using OR/AND/NOT operatorsand defines a value to be returned if the Boolean combination isevaluated positively.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the declarativepolicy comprises the rules configured in an ordered sequence, whereinthe declarative policy is evaluated at run-time according to flagsconfigured in the policy type to return values based on evaluation ofthe rules according to the ordered sequence.
 7. The method of claim 6,wherein at least one rule or condition of the declarative policyrequires the attribute value as an input.
 8. The method of claim 7,wherein the input comprises dynamic run-time data that depends on dataevaluated by a prior rule or condition of the declarative policy.
 9. Themethod of claim 7, wherein the input comprises dynamic run-time datathat is not part of input data fed to the policy engine by the requestfor the IAM service.
 10. The method of claim 7, wherein the function isused by the policy engine in configuring a condition or return value ofthe declarative policy.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein thereference to the attribute value comprises the function, wherein theobtaining of the attribute value comprises: parsing the policyexpression into the function at run-time; determining input arguments tothe function based on the request for the IAM service; and invoking theparsed function with the input arguments.
 12. The method of claim 7,wherein the policy engine configures an element in the policy type ofthe declarative policy, wherein the element identifies the attributeretriever class as an allowed input reference.
 13. The method of claim12, wherein the reference to the attribute value comprises the API ofthe attribute retriever class, wherein the policy engine invokes the APIof the attribute retriever class at run-time to retrieve the attributevalue if the corresponding attribute is referenced in at least onecondition or rule of the declarative policy.
 14. The method of claim 1,wherein the function is provided by an administrator of the tenant ofthe multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system.
 15. The method of claim 1,wherein the attribute retriever class is provided by an administrator ofthe tenant of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system.
 16. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the declarative policy is associated with a resource ora container of the tenant of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system.17. The method of claim 1, wherein the declarative policy is customizedfor the tenant of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system by acorresponding tenant administrator or a security administrator, whereinthe corresponding tenant administrator or the security administratorconfigures the declarative policy according to business requirements ofthe tenant.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein the corresponding tenantadministrator or the security administrator configures the declarativepolicy using an administration console UI.
 19. A system comprising: acomputer-readable medium storing instructions; and a processorconfigured to execute the instructions, wherein the instructions, whenexecuted by the processor, cause the processor to implement policyevaluation in a multi-tenant cloud-based identity and access management(IAM) system, the implementing comprising: receiving a request for anIAM service for a tenant of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system;determining an applicable policy associated with the IAM service;determining a policy expression of the applicable policy, wherein thepolicy expression comprises a reference to an attribute value, whereinthe reference either comprises a function or comprises an applicationprogramming interface (API) of an attribute retriever class; obtainingthe attribute value by invoking the function or by invoking the API ofthe attribute retriever class; evaluating the applicable policy atrun-time using at least the obtained attribute value; and performing theIAM service based on the result of the evaluating of the policy
 20. Acomputer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by aprocessor, cause the processor to implement policy evaluation in amulti-tenant cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) system,the implementing comprising: receiving a request for an IAM service fora tenant of the multi-tenant cloud-based IAM system; determining anapplicable policy associated with the IAM service; determining a policyexpression of the applicable policy, wherein the policy expressioncomprises a reference to an attribute value, wherein the referenceeither comprises a function or comprises an application programminginterface (API) of an attribute retriever class; obtaining the attributevalue by invoking the function or by invoking the API of the attributeretriever class; evaluating the applicable policy at run-time using atleast the obtained attribute value; and performing the IAM service basedon the result of the evaluating of the policy.